Oliver Haslam·

Apple’s Video Streaming Service To Launch With Third-Party Content, Original TV Shows Coming Later

We now officially have a date for Apple’s March event, with March 25th the big day. If a new report by Bloomberg is to be believed, we now also have a little more information on what that event will offer, and it makes for an interesting reading.

According to the report, Apple will launch its new video streaming service with little first-party content ready. The company is instead working to get its own shows ready for prime time, but for now it’s rushing to get deals signed with the likes of HBO, Stars, and Showtime so that it has some content available on day one.

We’re not sure why it’s still rushing to get them signed up at this point, but there’s apparently a Friday deadline with Apple also offering concessions to get the deals over the line.

HBO, Showtime and Starz are among the most-popular premium cable TV networks and all expect to reach a deal with the company, according to the people. But they’re still haggling over various points, including marketing, promotion and the user experience.

The report also claims that Apple will also show off its new credit card service on-stage with finance industry journalists having been invited to attend the event. The Apple credit card, or whatever it’s branded as, is also under the internal codename of “Project Cookie”.

As for the Apple News subscription service that we’re expecting, Bloomberg believes that it will be similar to the Texture service that Apple bought to make all of this happen.

We’ll know exactly what Apple is going to announce once it actually announces it all, so we’ll be glued to the live stream on March 25th. We’re sure you will, too.

(Source: Bloomberg)

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