“‘Kill Hollywood,’ is the latest battle cry from Silicon Valley. If you are Paul Graham, that’s not a bad way to motivate young would-be founders to create new startups,” Erick Schonfeld writes for TechCrunch.
“But what if you are Apple, trading spots with Exxon on any given day for the most valuable company in the world, with nearly $100 billion of cash in the bank, looking for the next industry to overturn to keep fueling your growth? There aren’t that many new markets out there that can make a difference to Apple at this point. Hollywood is one of them,” Schonfeld writes. “If you are Apple, however, you don’t want to kill Hollywood. You want to buy it.”
Schonfeld writes, “Before TVs can become more than a hobby for Apple, there is a major roadblock it must get past. The reluctance of Hollywood to license its best movies and TV shows at the price Apple wants to pay.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Edward Weber,” “Dow C.,” and “Carl H.” for the heads up.]
Invest in talent, e.g myself?
Maybe not talent per se (sorry), but rather in existing, independent production systems (systems being something Apple understands well).
By systems I mean producers, studios, and yes, talent – writers, directors, actors, and all the others needed to make TV and movies.
Buying pieces of the existing big studios and name brand talent will cost too much for what they will get. Like everything else Apple does, they should invest in the up and coming that has potential.
Purchase a carrier (or two!) or build their own, iPhone/Apple specific carrier.
Exactly. Pick up T-Mobile in a fire sale next year, or even better, grab Sprint for its delivery backbone.
theyve shown they don’t want to run other businesses. Just this week Tim said they tend to buy small operations and absorb them into their existing operations.
So buying Hollywood or cell companies is out. That’s a whole different industry.
What is the cash for, then?
1). Getting a fast jump onthe next big thing.
2). Buying themselves down the road.
3)… Well this ones secret, but let’s just say that 50 years from now the biggest player in shaping the united states of America won’t be the us government. (Remember, the church once ruled everything, and government was its vassal. This kind of shift will happen again.)
are you referring to scientology?
or buddhism? (hopefully the latter)
You’re saying Apple should just buy the Government? Interesting idea.
There are 100 Senators, 1/3 up for election each two year cycle and 435 Representatives, reelected every two years. The average winning Senate campaign costs about $10M and the average winning Congressional seat costs about $1M. Works out to $765M ($330M + $435M) every two years. $100B could fund the campaigns of every seat in the House and Senate for the next 130 election cycles, longer than the country has been in existence.
The Supreme Court says corporate funding of elections is OK and should have no limits. I’m not sure if I agree, but if it is to be, I’d just as soon have Apple choose our leadership as any of the current power brokers. I hope Apple chooses well.
He’s referring to a world as depicted in Rollerball. No nation-states … only corporations
Don’t repeat Sony’s mistake.
dumb idea.
For a minute there I thought you meant something like the USS Jobs. Interesting idea anyway.
Bring back Firefly!
Make season three of Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles!
+1
That’s what Sony tried in the 80s and then came 1997. Buying Hollywood really means, old flicks and primadonna egos with a mega parking lot.
I’d still rather see Apple own Columbia Pictures than Sony. It bummed me out when Sony and the Japanese went on that acquisition rampage in the ’80s.
Where is the confluence of technology and liberal arts? where is that next intersection? The idea of “buying Hollywood” is just not artfully expressed. No need to buy the old hidebound companies and and archaic structures that control the entertainment industry still today. Production companies would flock to a provider of access. If Apple chose to they could easily finance series, films, documentaries and obviously buy entire libraries or studios and “own” the industry…literally on a global basis in short order. Imagine buying Paramount, Dreamworks, and ABC/Cap Cities, just to name a few. ALL content available in the cloud. Want to make your device (Apple TV is just part of it) work at a global success level? Content is still king and owning the most significant content producers puts you in charge. Simple
What “best” movies and tv shows?
Apple needs to be very careful about what it does and what it buys. There is far too much Haterade going on about Apple. Especially this Chinese employee crap. It’s like worker abuse never existed before Apple came along. Apple should try to get some exclusive content from Hollywood, but the cries of Apple trying to control Hollywood and the film industry will be loud and ugly. There’ll be complaints that Apple is getting too large and too wealthy and causing the movie industry to suffer while Apple rakes in all the profits. It seems the more successful a company becomes, the more hate it generates. Maybe Apple needs to try to change its image into some charitable and lovable company. Maybe Apple needs to do something like fund health research projects before getting much larger. Throw off the iHater idiots for a little while.
Hollywood…?
Just because you can buy a blond doesn’t mean you can afford her downstream or that she will stay loyal to you.
Please provide info on prices for blondes and any licensed resellers. I could use one right about now.
Just remember, for each hot blonde you see, somewhere there’s somebody who’s glad she’s gone.
Buy Cox Communications and then you get control of some major content producers as well as 1 of the internet backbones.
Hollywood would be worth waay more than 100 billion. Wouldn’t it? What about Nintendo? I hear they’re on shaky ground. Or Adobe?
Oh, so we put the idea of buying Nintendo aside in favor of this one? Well, these ideas get crazier every time.
But, if you want my opinion, the idea of aquiring Nintendo was a bad idea and so is this. Why?…………It’s a different industry.
Apple could set up an app store for content owners and developers, Independent, films TV shows, dramas documentarys etc and make it available over the web.
If you want to be part of the action, it’s in Apple’s entertainment content app store. Similar to setup for apps, books and magazines etc.
In otherwords in the same way that the app store developed with both established companies and new developers with just a computer and an idea. The hype and the rating system would grow it into another big successful store, providing over the web streaming etc.
Add that to an Apple created satelite WIFI system and it seems to be a winning combo!
Apple would own everything from start to finish.
When Apple has $200 billion in the bank (in a few years) they can re-evaluate the situation. At that point they can evaluate a company like Square and see if they can offer a service a tier or two above. As long as Apple makes awesome products, perception will be good enough.
Apple doesn’t need buy anyone, other than keep on buying small companies that fit into where they want to go, keep most of the cash for component buys, and above all else don’t buy back stock or pay dividends.
With $100B in the bank, Apple could build state-of-the-art manufacturing plants in this country and provide many thousands of jobs to Americans.
Buy Elgato and built TVs into the ipads.