Television Apple apparently surprised that a show about Dr. Dre would involve sex, violence, and drugs.

[Jason]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/09/apples-original-content-will-shy-away-from-gratuitous-sex-violence/

 

Someone in the comments said they also made Shamalamadingdong remove crosses from a scene in his upcoming Apple series because it might offend Christians.

[RedSoxFan9]

They really don’t care about Beats

[skillzdadirecta]

I've heard that this service is so bland it's referred to as "expensive NBC" lol

[Keyser_Soze]

Nothing like sitting down to a nice wholesome Dr. Dre show for the whole family

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Apple must have just assumed that Dre had become as family-friendly as Cube.

[SuperSpreader]

Maybe stick to hardware

[legend]

So they want to remain an obscure choice that won't make any money?

[Kal-El814]

They really forgot about Dre, didn’t they. The irony tree, as always, bears bitter fruit.

[RedSoxFan9]

Show runners are going to love Apple micromanaging their shows

[ort]

They need a completely separate company that operates completely independently of Apple to run their entertainment division.

 

I don't trust Apple to create quality programming. Not one bit.

[TwinIon]

Yeah, let's think about the breakout shows that different content channels have had that really elevated the status of their channel or service:

 

HBO - The Sopranos, Game of Thrones

FX - Sons of Anarchy, Justified, The Americans

AMC - Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead

Netflix - House of Cards, Orange is the New Black

Hulu - Handmaid's Tale

Amazon - Transparent, The Grand Tour

 

Or how about we look at the Emmys that just happened and see what shows got awarded:

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon): 5
The Assassination of Gianni Versace (FX): 3
The Americans (FX): 2
Barry (HBO): 2
The Crown (Netflix): 2
Game of Thrones (HBO): 2
Godless (Netflix): 2

 

Of all of that, you could argue that Amazon is probably the most family friendly content creator, with their biggest viewership coming from TGT and their biggest awards success being Mrs. Maisel. Still, so much of their content contains a healthy amount of violence or sex. Their new biggest show is Jack Ryan, their other series include Goliath, Man in the High Castle, and Bosch. Even their comedies like Red Oaks and Mozart in the Jungle prominently feature sex.

 

It's really hard to imagine Apple becoming a player in the content game if all they do is go after network friendly television, and this is one of the biggest reasons:

34 minutes ago, RedSoxFan9 said:

Show runners are going to love Apple micromanaging their shows

With Amazon and Netflix specifically, you have platforms spending billions of dollars each year that hardly ever interfere with the actual content of the shows. I feel like every creator that had a major success has credited the creative freedom that those platforms provided.

 

There just aren't enough "Big Bang Theory" type shows to go around, and the networks are desperate for them. How Apple plans to make that the backbone of their content strategy is beyond me.

[Jason]

There's also just a huge difference between giving their content creators a general mandate to tone it down, and micromanaging specific boundaries like the crosses thing. You can't have an organic creative process with that kind of micromanaging and I'd imagine that good creators are going to be giving Apple a wide berth now that they're known to do this.