Report: Apple prepping $1 billion for TV content


Apple is reportedly about to make a big play for original content.
The Wall Street Journal:

Combined with the company's marketing clout and global reach, the step immediately makes Apple a considerable competitor in a crowded market where both new and traditional media players are vying to acquire original shows. Apple's budget is about half what Time Warner Inc.'s HBO spent on content last year and on par with estimates of what Amazon.com Inc. spent in 2013, the year after it announced its move into original programming.

For persecutive, this is about 1/6 of what Netflix is believed to be spending on original content and about 1/4 of what Amazon is investing. For an initial push, however, that should be a sizable amount on new programming. Likely, both Netflix and Amazon have higher costs as returning programs should be more expensive.