Apple Meets With 'Breaking Bad' Team, Other TV Show Producers

Apple has long been tied to launching its own original video content and the company is reportedly making aggressive moves to build out its programming library. The hardware giant has aggressively been meeting with a variety of well-known stars and showrunners in recent weeks to find its next shows, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Internally, Apple wants to find a prestige show or drama of its own in the mold of “Game of Thrones” or “Breaking Bad” and has taken advantage of its name recognition in industry circles. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, Apple's original video team has been taking meetings for projects that have also been discussed at HBO or Netflix and has met with creators including “Breaking Bad” showrunner Vince Gilligan and Bryan Cranston. The company also doesn’t intend to go directly head-to-head with Netflix’s pace of programming for now, as it’s only placed bids on a handful of shows at the moment.

Apple’s interest in video content has been well-established, as the company hired several former studio executives from Sony Pictures and WGN America earlier this year. It’s also reportedly looking to invest $1 billion of its sizable cash reserves into original programming, although its show so far — which includes the reality competition “Planet of the Apps,” “Carpool Karaoke” and original documentaries — have generally made a modest impact among viewers.

In addition, distribution remains a question for Apple’s larger content goals. At the moment, it’s kept much of its original programming as Apple Music exclusives and although the streaming music service been a decent success — it had 27 million paying subscribers as of this summer — video, it’s still far behind other streaming video services like Netflix and Hulu. It also speaks to a larger chicken-and-egg problem for Apple, who wants to spur viewer growth for Apple Music with shows while simultaneously dealing with Apple Music’s smaller user base.

Apple is also far from the only company that’s engaged in the hunt for the next big prestige show. Major original programing that can attract critical buzz — along with helping to boost subscriber numbers — has been a key strategy for streaming video investments from Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. All three have funded shows like “Transparent,” “Stranger Things” and “House of Cards” that have gone up against traditional studio-funded shows and frequently won. Earlier this month, Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” won Best Drama Series at the Emmys.

General video programming has been a similar move for other tech companies and social media networks in a bid to pump up video advertising revenue and user engagement numbers. Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat have been among the companies that have invested in their own streaming original shows. As for Apple, it likely hopes to follow this playbook for similar successes and with its ample resources, it can likely afford to wait to find a show it wants to pay for.