Apple Paying Apple News Publishers for Rights to Exclusive Video Content

• Apple has extended its interest in programming beyond original TV content.
• Reports state Apple has paid Buzzfeed to show Buzzfeed content on Apple News a week ahead of Buzzfeed’s other distribution platforms.
• Three episodes of ‘Future History’ by Buzzfeed Video will air on Apple News thanks to the new partnership.

Apple is aggressively trying to tap into the video programming market aggressively. The tech giant is stretching beyond its original TV show efforts. According to reports, Apple paid Buzzfeed to show the first three episodes of its ‘Future History’ video series on Apple News a week ahead of other distribution platforms.

In exchange for the exclusivity, Buzzfeed is set to receive a cut for the ads shown in the videos in addition to an upfront payment by Apple. Apple has highlighted the video stories by Buzzfeed more prominently in Apple News since the iOS 11.3 update.

Apple News content includes ads between videos for monetization. Apple has a dedicated ad sales group outside despite the collapse of Apple’s developer ad sales attempt with iAd. Apple also has started adding video content to its News widgets in recent months to prioritize videos on the News app.

According to the report, Apple agreed to make Buzzfeed videos more prominent in the featured galleries which are starting to pay off. Apple News viewership has beaten the count of views against competing platforms. With the recent success, it is expected that more Buzzfeed content will become exclusive to Apple and other media companies may follow suit.

The Buzzfeed content received hundreds of thousands of views across all three episodes of ‘Future History’. In comparison, the videos have accumulated 110,000 views on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter since being uploaded to those platforms a week after Apple News.

Apple’s investment into content for Apple News is an arranged effort. The platform has been putting out a lot of exclusive content lately including an excerpt from John McCain’s upcoming book and also a bunch of new features for the upcoming Winter Olympics. Apple is also set to roll out a newspaper and magazine subscription service in 2019 and a VR headset is expected soon from the tech giant.