Apple TV+ Reportedly Heading Toward 'Breaking Point' Amid Staffing Problems and Frustrated Content Partners

Apple TV+ is suffering from infrastructure problems and some content partners have become frustrated with the service, Business Insider reports.

Apple TV Ray Light 2 Triad
Industry sources speaking to Business Insider claim that ‌Apple TV‌+ lacks "a sufficiently robust infrastructure," resulting in a frustrating corporate culture. The ‌Apple TV‌+ content team is reportedly under-resourced and has irritated production partners. The streamer's leadership structure is "very flat" and "key departments, like marketing and publicity, don't communicate enough, leaving partners to juggle multiple points of contact."

Two content executives who have worked with ‌Apple TV‌+ told Business Insider that the streamer's in-house lawyers lack familiarity with common entertainment law practices and executives are expected to check with bosses before making decisions, which slows down the dealmaking and production processes. One executive said that ‌Apple TV‌+ began streaming a show before a contract was signed, while another said that they had problems simply getting invoices paid.

Other sources said that ‌Apple TV‌+ has a chaotic approach to marketing, including "disruptive, last-minute marketing planning for projects that have been in the works for months; sloppy press rollouts; landing pages for series that weren't ready in time." "They are still marketing like it's an iPhone, not content," one executive told Business Insider. As a result, details of new projects are tightly controlled and kept secret until the last minute, and content partners get little to no information on how their projects are performing with subscribers. Similar concerns were raised by studio executives speaking to The Information last year.

A former Apple member of staff said that there is burnout at ‌Apple TV‌+, partly due to a number of delayed shows moving forward at the same time. "There's going to be a breaking point. People are stretched thin and working too hard," they added.

Apple purportedly wants to make all of ‌Apple TV‌+'s content itself to avoid reliance on partners like Warner Bros., but it does not currently have the resources to do so. The company is said to be hoping to rectify some of the immediate workflow issues by hiring more mid-level content executives to manage cost projections and budgeting. Another source speaking to Business Insider defended ‌Apple TV‌+, claiming that the issues are the result of the streamer still being fairly new.

The report comes just days after ‌Apple TV‌+'s "CODA" won Best Picture at the Academy Awards this year, becoming the first film from a streaming service to ever win the award.

Popular Stories

Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
2024 App Store Awards

Apple Explains Why It Removed TikTok From the App Store in the U.S.

Sunday January 19, 2025 6:58 am PST by
Apple on late Saturday removed TikTok from the App Store in the U.S., and it has now explained why it was required to take this action. Last year, the U.S. passed a law that required Chinese company ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok due to potential national security risks, or else the platform would be banned. That law went into effect today, and companies like Apple and Google...
iPhone SE Dynamic Island Majin Bu

iPhone SE 4 Leak Shows Dynamic Island, Casts Doubt on Rumored 'iPhone 16E' Name

Monday January 20, 2025 9:01 am PST by
A new iPhone SE is widely rumored to launch this year, and the device has potentially been confirmed today by known leaker Evan Blass. In a private social media post, Blass shared an image of what appears to be source code mentioning an iPhone SE (4th Gen), which casts doubt on the alternative "iPhone 16E" name rumored for the device. However, the name in the source code could be a...
iOS 19 Roundup Feature

iOS 19 Rumored to Be Compatible With These iPhones

Saturday January 18, 2025 10:28 am PST by
iOS 19 will not drop support for any iPhone models, according to French website iPhoneSoft.fr. The report cited a source who said iOS 19 will be compatible with any iPhone that can run iOS 18, which would mean the following models: iPhone 16 iPhone 16 Plus iPhone 16 Pro iPhone 16 Pro Max iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Plus iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max iPhone 14 iPhon...
airtag 4 pack blue

AirTag 2 Launching This Year With These 3 New Features

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:11 am PST by
After a four-year wait, a new AirTag is finally expected to launch in 2025. Below, we recap rumored upgrades for the accessory. A few months ago, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple was aiming to release the AirTag 2 around the middle of 2025. While he did not offer a more specific timeframe, that means the AirTag 2 could be announced by the end of June. The original AirTag was announced...
iPhone 17 Air Size Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With Rear Camera Bar Allegedly Shown in Leaked Photo

Tuesday January 21, 2025 12:46 pm PST by
A leaker known as "Majin Bu" today shared an alleged image of a component for the rumored, ultra-thin "iPhone 17 Air" model. The blurry, pixelated image shows a pair of rear iPhone shells with a pill-shaped, raised camera bar along the top. On the left side of the bar, there is a circular cutout that appears to be for a single rear camera. On the right side of the bar, there appears to be an ...
apple power beats pro 2

Powerbeats Pro 2 Coming Soon: Apple to Announce Them 'Imminently'

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:25 am PST by
In September, Apple said that it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and it appears the wireless earbuds are coming very soon. Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the Powerbeats Pro 2 in regulatory databases last month, Gurman said Apple is...
Generic iOS 18

Everything New in iOS 18.3 Beta 3

Thursday January 16, 2025 12:39 pm PST by
Apple provided the third beta of iOS 18.3 to developers today, and while the betas have so far been light on new features, the third beta makes some major changes to Notification Summaries and also tweaks a few other features. Notification Summary Changes Apple made multiple changes to Notification Summaries in response to complaints about inaccurate summaries of news headlines. For...

Top Rated Comments

icanhazmac Avatar
37 months ago
This is what happens when you try to be too many things. Go back to making great devices that "just work".
Score: 43 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jz0309 Avatar
37 months ago
sounds like growing pain of a new business, not really untypical, utterly as usual as it's Apple, it's been blown out of proportion
Score: 42 Votes (Like | Disagree)
scotty321 Avatar
37 months ago
Yep. Sounds about right. Welcome to Tim Cook’s Apple.
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Joosst Avatar
37 months ago
Please just stop with it. Merge it with Disney+. Nobody needed yet another streaming service anyway.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
02-serious-stent Avatar
37 months ago
One disgruntled former employee crows to Mac Rumors and the entire business units is on fire.

Welcome to “journalism” in 2022.

Almost as bad as that crazy woman who Apple fired that The Verge was trying to prop up last year.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
zubikov Avatar
37 months ago
Anything Eddy Cue touches stagnates or turns to sh*t. He was given Siri and it lost ground for years. He was given iCloud and it was underutilized. Apple Music hasn't evolved in meaningful ways. Clearly TV+ is the next one on his long list of accomplishments. It's just amazing for how long he keeps underperforming amidst a group of the world's most qualified and competent executives. When will the Apple board finally say enough is enough?
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)