Apple’s original video team adds another TV veteran

By

Michelle Lee 1
Michelle Lee is another highly qualified hire for Apple's growing TV division.
Photo: Apple

Apple has hired another high level scripted television veteran as part of its Apple Worldwide Video initiative.

Michelle Lee has been named a creative executive at Apple Worldwide Video. In her previous role at the Universal Television-based True Jack Productions, she developed and executive produced multiple series, including the upcoming Rise for NBC, The Path for Hulu, About a Boy for NBC, and Pure Genius for CBS.

At Apple, she will report to fellow newcomer Matt Cherniss, who joined the company back in August.

Building a super team

Apple has been steadily building up its original content team throughout 2017. Former Sony executives Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht are reportedly spearheading Apple’s efforts in this area.

Apple reportedly plans to spend $1 billion developing original programming over the next year, with that figure likely to rise to somewhere north of $4 billion by 2022.

Last month, Apple announced its first two scripted series efforts: a network morning-show drama that stars both Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, and a revival of Steve Spielberg’s anthology series Amazing Stories.

Having seemingly branched out from its original remit of just producing music-related content, under the Apple Music banner, Apple is assembling a team with some seriously impressive drama pedigree behind them. Now we just need to wait and see if they can turn those hires into the kind of success enjoyed by Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.

Do you have faith in Apple’s abilities to deliver original content? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Variety

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