Deadline has news that Apple’s upcoming streaming service has rejected a new series from Dr. Dre. The report states Apple CEO Tim Cook personally turned down the series, titled Vital Signs, out of concerns that it’s too dark and violent.
The Wall Street Journal also reports that Cook’s decision was reached out of concerns for the service’s consumer products sales. This includes a “toning down” of Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston’s new series Hello Sunshine, and passing on Whitney Cummings #MeToo-based talk show for being too sensitive a topic. Even M. Night Shyamalan‘s (Glass, Unbreakable) new series was called upon to remove crucifixes from a character’s home out of fear of alienating its religious viewers.
This is the opposite approach that other streaming services, like Netflix and Amazon, have taken with their original content, which has a tendency to push the envelope. While the established streaming services tend to take an “anything goes” policy, Apple is clearly trying to differentiate itself by making more homogenized content with, (they hope) a wider audience appeal.
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Time will tell if this is move proves successful for the up-and-coming platform. But, we’ll have to wait a little longer for that, as Apple’s new streaming service’s launch date was recently pushed back to March of 2019.
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