Author: Lesley Goldberg / Source: The Hollywood Reporter
In the war for talent, Apple has just scored a major victory.
The tech giant and eventual streamer has inked a multiple-year content partnership with Oprah Winfrey. Under the pact, terms of which were not immediately available, Winfrey and Apple will create original content that will be released as part of the latter’s lineup of content.
Sources say the pact includes everything from film, TV, applications, books and other content that could easily be distributed on Apple’s all-encompassing platform. (The deal does not include podcasts, as Winfrey has her own platform for that.) Sources note that Winfrey landed at Apple in a competitive situation with other tech giants, likely including Netflix and Amazon, all pursuing similar deals. Apple is said to have aggressively pursued Winfrey as part of a larger push to reach a broad audience.
Winfrey’s Harpo Films will own any and all content produced under the Apple partnership, in line with the mega-producer’s longtime business model. The deal marks a different type of pact than Netflix’s lucrative deals with Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rhimes, which were both completed in a bid for the streaming giant to own more of its original programming.
The deal is non-exclusive as Winfrey will continue to remain chairman and CEO of Discovery Communications-backed cable network OWN. Winfrey in December extended her deal with OWN to remain through at least 2025, with Discovery acquiring an additional 24.5 percent of OWN from Winfrey-owned Harpo. All told, Discovery has more than a 70 percent stake in OWN as Winfrey and…
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