Apple chief executive Tim Cook praised Apple TV+ today with shout-outs to its shows, its recent “54 Emmy nominations across 13 titles” and its goal of “giving great storytellers the venue to tell great stories.”
On a conference call with Wall Street analyst after the tech giant’s quarterly earnings, he did not mention, nor was he asked about, strikes by Hollywood writers and actors that have shuttered much scripted production, including at Apple TV+. Apple is a member of the AMPTP along with traditional studios, Netflix and Amazon.
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Apple TV+ is one of many businesess that make up Apple’s Services division, including Apple Music, Apple Pay, the Apple App Store, Apple Arcade and others. Services set a record for the quarter ended in June with revenue up 8% at $21.2 billion and over 1 billion paid subscriptions. Apple’s total revenue for its fiscal third quarter was $81.8 billion. Cook said contributions from “video, Apple Care, Cloud and payment services” helped lead the way, however the company doesn’t break out any financials or subscriber details within Services.
“Apple TV+ continues to provide a spectacular showcase of imaginative storytelling. Recently, fans welcomed new series like Hijack and Silo, as well as returning fan favorites like Foundation and The Afterparty. In the few years since its launch, Apple TV+ has earned mor than 1,500 nominations and 370 wins, that includes the 54 Emmy-award nominations across 13 titles that Apple TV+ received last month,” Cook said. (Silo went on indefinite hiatus in late July due amid the strikes. Foundation Season 3 is also expected to be impacted.)
“We are focused on original content [with Apple TV+] and so we are all about giving great storytellers the venue to tell great stories and hopefully get us all to think a little deeper. And sport is a part of that because sport is the ultimate original story,” he said in response to a question about Apple’s ambition in sports after its MLS deal. (“Fans all over the world tuned in with the MLS season pass. We are excited about our MLS partnership and thrilled to see [Lionel] Messi suiting up with Inter Miami,” he said.)
Services helps energize Apple’s sweeping “install base” of people who buy and use Apple devices, which is a ever growing number, and speaks to “a high level of engagement of our customers in the ecosystem, which is really very important for us,” said CFO Luca Maestri on the call. “Our install base continues to grow, so we’ve got a larger pool of customers…Our customers are more engaged” with more accounts of all types in the “ecosystem.” He said the 1 million subscriptions represents growth of 150 million over the past 12 months and is almost double the number three years ago as Apple offers “more and more content to our users.”
The WGA struck on May 2 with the work stoppage nearly its 100-day mark. SAG-AFTRA took to the picket lines on July 14. There are some guild-specific demands, but both are asking for better pay and benefits and higher residuals from streaming. Neither has been in talks with the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers since they struck but the WGA and AMPTP are planning to meet tomorrow.
Media CEOs have weighed in on the work stoppage one way or another. Earlier today, Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav said on a conference call that he’s “hopeful that all sides will get back to the negotiating room soon and that these strikes get resolved in a way that the writers and actors feel that they are fairly compensated.” WBD is a content company, he noted,” That’s all we have.”
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