It was announced yesterday that Oprah Winfrey would be ending her multi-year content deal with Apple TV according to The Hollywood Reporter. The deal had been in place since 2018. Winfrey and Apple TV will continue to work on individual projects together. The pair will also continue their partnership on Oprah’s Book Club, which is on Apple Books and OprahDaily.com. The latest collaboration between Apple TV and Winfrey premiered last Friday. It was a documentary called Sidney which told the life story of Sidney Portier (A Patch of Blue). Reginald Hudlin (House Party) was the director and Winfrey was a producer.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Apple was said to be eager in 2018 to partner with someone like Oprah as it wanted to reach a broader audience and Oprah is, to this day, a well-recognized celebrity who could bring them into the living rooms of an older audience. They aggressively pursued her. It is said that Amazon and Netflix were after Oprah at that time as well.
When the deal was signed in 2018, sources told THR that the pact encompassed film, TV, applications, books, and other content that could easily be distributed on Apple’s all-encompassing platform. The deal also was nonexclusive, allowing Winfrey to continue as chief of Discovery Communications-backed cable network OWN.
Some of the projects that Winfrey has done while partnered with Apple TV are a documentary series called The Me You Can’t See, which was a partnership with Prince Harry focusing on mental health; and, The Oprah Conversation which were discussions with influential people.
The Hollywood Reporter lists Winfery has also been preparing the benefits of the non-exclusive deal with Apple. Winfrey has had two high profile programs on CBS recently. They were interviews with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and Adele (Saturday Night Live). She also has recently done a project on Smithsonian Channel and has her own network OWN that has shows that she is involved with.