Business
Apple has made splashy bets in Hollywood. Are they paying off?
In the first episode of the Apple TV+ show “The Studio,” Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese sells his script to the fictional Continental Studios, only to be told later by a studio chief played by Seth Rogen that the project, about Jonestown, has been killed.
Instead, the company is fast-tracking a soulless brand-based cash grab: a Kool-Aid movie.
“Just give me back my movie and let me go sell it to f— Apple, the way I should have done it in the first place,” a despairing Scorsese says.
The line could practically be an ad for how Apple TV+, the Cupertino tech giant’s streaming service, has positioned itself as a creative haven for filmmakers trying to sell bold, original ideas.
The service, which was introduced in 2019 with a splashy event featuring Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, found success with comedy shows like “Ted Lasso” and 2022 best picture Academy Award winner “CODA.”
But the question hanging over the company was, just how serious was it about its Hollywood ambitions? Would it be the next big power player? Or would it become just another deep-pocketed short-timer? For years after they joined the company, Apple TV+ leaders Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg were dogged by rumors that their jobs were in jeopardy.
Lately though, its efforts have come more into focus. It’s been on a run of critical success with shows such as “Severance,” “The Studio” and “Your Friends & Neighbors.” Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said in a call with investors on Thursday that Apple TV+ “has become a must-see destination” and posted record viewership in the quarter.
Some have compared it to HBO — before Warner Bros. Discovery began making cuts — developing a reputation for being willing to pay big for A-list stars and creatives.
“It’s been brilliant at defining its niche … and the quality of what it does is simply superb,” said Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. “The question is, is the niche big enough to justify the expense?”
Apple TV+’s subscriber base remains small compared to competitors, including Netflix. It lacks the deep, established libraries of Walt Disney Co. or Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max, which helps keep customers paying every month and not switching to another service. While it has good shows and movies, critics say, it lacks the volume and breadth of its competitors.
And the quality over quantity approach has its doubters. Wedbush Securities managing director Daniel Ives estimates Apple TV+ has 57 million subscribers, which he called “disappointing.” Wall Street had hoped to see 100 million or more subscribers by now, he said.
Apple has “built a mansion [and] they don’t have enough furniture, and that’s a problem from a content perspective with Apple TV+,” Ives said.
Further, tech and business news site the Information reported that Apple TV+ is losing $1 billion a year. The company’s strategy has left some rivals scratching their heads.
“I don’t understand it beyond a marketing play, but they’re really smart people,” said Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos in a March interview with Variety. “Maybe they see something we don’t.”
Apple declined to comment.
Observers noted that it can take a long time for streaming services to become profitable. NBCUniversal’s Peacock is still losing money, for example.
In recent years, subscription streaming services have been under pressure by investors to produce more profit. In an industry where there’s a lot of competition and Netflix has been declared the winner, there’s anxiety about how many platforms can survive on their own.
But Apple thinks differently about entertainment compared to its more traditional studio rivals, people familiar with the company say.
Apple TV+ is just one part of the company’s larger strategy to grow its subscription services business under Eddy Cue, which includes Apple Music, iCloud storage and Apple News, among other options.
The services category represented 25% of Apple’s overall sales of $391 billion in its last fiscal year. The company’s largest money maker remains the iPhone, which represented 51% of Apple’s total revenues in its last fiscal year.
In its most recent quarter, services reached a revenue record of $26.6 billion, up 12% from a year ago, the company said.
Apple TV+ is “a small piece of all the services that you provide,” said Alejandro Rojas, vice president of applied analytics with Parrot Analytics. “You want this to add to the overall brand experience, but without also crossing a massive gap in resources and investments.”
Apple TV+’s programming strategy has taken a talent-friendly approach, tending to favor projects with big-name stars.
One of its early major bets was “The Morning Show” with Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell. Drama “Your Friends & Neighbors” stars Jon Hamm from “Mad Men.” Its February survival drama film “The Gorge” stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy.
One of Apple’s biggest movie releases will happen this summer with Formula 1 film “F1” (featuring Brad Pitt), which hits theaters in June, including on Imax screens. Warner Bros. is handling the theatrical release for the big-budget movie, directed by Joseph Kosinski (“Top Gun: Maverick”).
Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, hopes “F1” will play like “Top Gun: Maverick” on a racetrack. Some of Apple’s previous filmmaker-driven, star-studded movies struggled at theaters, including “Fly Me to the Moon” and “Argylle.”
“This is a huge movie for Apple,” Dergarabedian said. “I think they picked a perfect project to really amplify their filmmaking acumen and their filmmaker relationships.”
The way Apple treats talent has a personalized touch, said creatives who have worked with the company.
Tomorrow Studios president Becky Clements said she was “forever grateful” that Apple took a shot on “Physical,” an original series starring Rose Byrne about a 1980s housewife who struggles with an eating disorder and finds strength through aerobics.
“It’s an original piece, which is often a difficult thing to pull off in the marketplace,” Clements said.
Clements credited Apple with supporting the filmmakers and not micromanaging the show, which delved into difficult material.
Ben Silverman, an executive producer on upcoming Apple TV+ series “Stick” (starring Owen Wilson), said the show’s budget allowed for traveling to North Carolina for filming, where prominent golf commentators Trevor Immelman and Jim Nantz were located during the PGA Tour.
“I think a lot of platforms are supportive of their creators right now, but they may not have the bandwidth to go as deep as Apple can on individual projects because they’re just not doing as many,” said Silverman, chairman and co-CEO of L.A.-based Propagate Content.
Not all creatives have been happy with Apple.
It threw observers for a loop when it did a short and limited theatrical release for last year’s Brad Pitt and George Clooney action-comedy movie “Wolfs,” instead of a more traditional wide release.
Director Jon Watts told Deadline he backed out of a sequel because he was surprised by Apple’s “last minute” shift and that Apple ignored his request to not reveal that he was working on a follow-up. Apple has not addressed the controversy publicly.
Like other streamers, over time, Apple TV+ has made changes to help generate more revenue, cut costs and increase customers. Last month, Apple cut the price of its streaming service temporarily to $2.99 a month. Its base monthly fee is $9.99. Last year, Apple TV+ reached a deal to sell subscriptions through Amazon.
In February, Apple TV+ captured 30% of its sign-ups via Amazon Channels, said Brendan Brady, director of strategy at research firm Antenna. High-profile releases including the new “Severance” season and “The Gorge” drove sign-ups, he added.
“It’s a combination of content driving their acquisition, and also that opening up of their distribution attracting a new audience,” Brady said.
Apple’s overall business faces macroeconomic challenges, such as the Trump administration’s trade war with China.
Government officials have warned that tariffs on smartphones made in China are coming — which would harm Apple’s iPhone because many are made in the country. Increased costs to Apple’s overall business could eventually squeeze other areas of the company including Apple TV+, analysts said.
Some people who work with Apple said it’s too early to judge Apple’s success based on its estimated subscriber counts so far, and they’re placing chips on the venture succeeding in the long run.
“It’s about investing early and long-term,” Silverman said. “I’m always an entrepreneurial spirit who wants to lean in early to these platforms and partnerships, hoping that I can build a beachfront relationship.”
Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs in its operations division, mostly from its technology department, the company said Thursday.
In a note to employees, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the chief operating officer of Nike, said that management was nearly done reorganizing the business for its turnaround plan, and that the goal was to operate with “more speed, simplicity and precision.”
“This is not a new direction,” Mr. Alagirisamy told employees. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”
Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, is trying to recover after missteps led to a prolonged sales slump, in which the brand leaned into lifestyle products and away from performance shoes and apparel. Elliott Hill, the chief executive, has worked to realign the company around sports and speed up product development to create more breakthrough innovations.
In March, Nike told investors that it expected sales to fall this year, with growth in North America offset by poor performance in Asia, where the brand is struggling to rejuvenate sales in China. Executives said at the time that more volatility brought on by the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices might continue to affect its business.
The reorganization has involved cuts across many parts of the organization, including at its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Nike slashed some corporate staff last year and eliminated nearly 800 jobs at distribution centers in January.
“You never want to have to go through any sort of layoffs, but to re-center the company, we’re doing some of that,” Mr. Hill said in an interview earlier this year.
Mr. Alagirisamy told employees that Nike was reshaping its technology team and centering employees at its headquarters and a tech center in Bengaluru, India. The layoffs will affect workers across North America, Europe and Asia.
The cuts will also affect staffing in Nike’s factories for Air, the company’s proprietary cushioning system. Employees who work on the supply chain for raw materials will also experience changes as staff is integrated into footwear and apparel teams.
Nike’s Converse brand, which has struggled for years to revive sales, will move some of its engineering resources closer to the factories they support, the company said.
Mr. Alagirisamy said the moves were necessary to optimize Nike’s supply chain, deploy technology faster and bolster relationships with suppliers.
A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.
The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.
The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.
The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.
It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.
However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.
Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.
Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.
“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.
In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”
The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.
“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.
Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.
Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.
Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.
The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.
But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.
Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.
A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.
“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .
Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.
Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.
Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.
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Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.
But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.
While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.
“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.
It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”
Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.
“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.
The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.
Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.
Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”
Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.
Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.
“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”
For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.
“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”
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