Is The Future Of TV In Silicon Valley?

As they make significant moves into the content industry, tech giant Apple has already started hiring top executives from major firms in the business.

Apple had made their plans clear over the summer, when they launched their first two shows: Planet of the Apps and Carpool Karaoke. The company was looking to expand into the fast-growing market of video content, and they planned to do so by introducing video broadcasting on Apple Music, eventually aiming at becoming a competitor to Netflix, Amazon Video and Hulu.

Determined to make a splash on the original content stage, they closed a deal last month to produce the legendary director Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories. Originally aired in 1985, the series won five Emmys before being cancelled, but now a big comeback is imminent as the Cupertino company has invested as much as $1 billion for a new 10-episode season.

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Join The Crew of The ‘Flight To Quality’!

Join The Crew of The 'Flight To Quality'!

I wrote recently here that Google is likely to become one of our biggest paymasters in the future of the TV production industry, but this still sounds like crystal ball-gazing, or science fiction. Right now, most predictions for TV watching in the future, other than the licence funded BBC, are based on viewers paying a little – or a lot – for what they want to watch. And it looks like they want better than they’re getting just now.

When television viewers can choose what they want to view and when, they have less tolerance for low-budget, vapid TV wallpaper. Adam Curtis, maker of The Power Of Nightmares and Century of the Self, recently told C21 Media that the BBC iPlayer is one of the things changing the state of play for documentary production, because people can watch docs again and again, which means they can be “as complicated as you want.” This discerning viewing goes far beyond BBC iPlayer – any digital TV box with a recording facility gives viewers the same power of involvement and will be the kiss of death to patronising telly.

David Cuff is Virgin Media’s Commercial Director, and I recently heard him tell a room full of interactive TV producers that, “there is a flight towards quality. People are watching better quality programmes, for which they are prepared to pay”. But this isn’t just about affluent viewers getting the good stuff. We can still do the traditional thing and pay through our shopping bills by watching adverts, they’ll just be better targeted to each of us. Advertisers don’t really have a problem with smaller audiences if they can get a better focus on just the people they really want to reach.

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