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A New Report Outlines Apple's Reluctance For Mature Content On Its Streaming Service (theverge.com)
A new report from The Wall Street Journal details the state of Apple's yet-to-be-unveiled streaming service. "It highlights some of the difficulties Apple has faced in striking the right tone for its content, particularly when it comes to 'gratuitous sex, profanity or violence,' and cites sources who expect the launch of the streaming service to be pushed further back," reports The Verge. From the report: The report opens with Apple CEO Tim Cook's reaction to Vital Signs, a show based on the life of Dr. Dre. Apple picked up the show back in 2016, but when Cook viewed it a year ago, he told Apple Music executive Jimmy Iovine that it was too violent, and that the company can't show it. Apple has some big plans for its original content ambitions. It brought in two seasoned Hollywood executives to oversee its video streaming project, and invested $1 billion to develop new a slate of new projects. Judging from those acquisitions, the company is swinging for the fences it's picked up a reboot of Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories, a space show from Battlestar Galactica's Ron Moore, a network drama starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, a show based on Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, and more.
The WSJ report notes that Apple's preference is for family-friendly projects that appeal to a broad audience, and that it's trying to avoid weighing into overly political or controversial territory with the content that it's producing -- only a handful of those shows "veer into 'TV-MA' territory." Apple's approach doesn't come as a huge surprise: it's been described as "conservative and picky." The company has long forbidden adult content from its App Store, rigorously removing Apps that even display NSFW content, like Vine or 500px. TV executives note in the report that where streaming services can simply weather a boycott or lose some subscribers, alienating audiences could prompt viewers to boycott Apple's hardware.
The WSJ report notes that Apple's preference is for family-friendly projects that appeal to a broad audience, and that it's trying to avoid weighing into overly political or controversial territory with the content that it's producing -- only a handful of those shows "veer into 'TV-MA' territory." Apple's approach doesn't come as a huge surprise: it's been described as "conservative and picky." The company has long forbidden adult content from its App Store, rigorously removing Apps that even display NSFW content, like Vine or 500px. TV executives note in the report that where streaming services can simply weather a boycott or lose some subscribers, alienating audiences could prompt viewers to boycott Apple's hardware.
Why would anyone be surprised? This is APPLE. A company that has done quite well being a hand holding, app curating, experience controlling nanny to millions of people. Why would they change?
If you are going to run a streaming service, I'd say the bar for morality has to be set by Disney - and they are running way worse stuff that what Apple is balking at.
If Apple wants a successful video streaming service, they can't just all be hour long videos of Ive talking slowly about aluminum. Otherwise they'll end up being worse even than Prime Video (I joke but actually Prime video is slowly getting better, just Netflix is still 10x ahead in good show development).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I know what people mean by it, but I still find it amusing that gratuitous sex and violence in media is called "mature".
Edgy doesn't require explicit sex and foul language, The 1950s showed that, making all sorts of movies about rape, cheating preachers, incest, etc.
Exactly.
I'd ask "edge of what?" I'd like to watch stuff on the edge of good storytelling.
The golden age of movies was when they had the production code. You had to actually be able to tell a good story, not just activate the limbic system.
Is Apple bending them over with high prices, shoddy build quality, and class-action-lawsuit-based customer service.