Apple TV+ announces biographical docuseries 'Dear...' featuring Oprah, Stevie Wonder, more

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Apple TV+ announces biographical docuseries 'Dear...' featuring Oprah, Stevie Wonder, more

Last updated 5 years ago

Apple on Friday announced "Dear," a new documentary series produced by R.J. Cutler that takes a deeper look into the lives of iconic figures like Oprah Winfrey, Stevie Wonder, journalist Gloria Steinem, gymnast Aly Raisman and more.

According to a of the series, "Dear" draws inspiration from the company's "Dear Apple" advertisements that feature customers reading written testimonials about Apple products.

Like "Dear Apple" letters, which typically focus on life-changing events like Apple Watch discovering a heart condition or iPhone automatically calling emergency services after a car crash, the upcoming show uses letters to paint a picture of "internationally recognized leaders." Along with Winfrey, Wonder, Steinem and Raisman, the 10-episode series will profiles Spike Lee, Lin-Manuel Miranda, model and activist Yara Shahidi, ballet dancer Misty Copeland and Big Bird.

Cutler, an Emmy and Peabody Award winner, will executive produce the project for Apple. The documentarian gained notoriety for Anna Wintour profile "The September Issue" and most recently worked on the "Untitled Billie Eilish Documentary," which is expected to debut as an Apple TV+ exclusive later this year.

Todd Lubin, Jay Peterson, Jane Cha and Lyle Gamm are also listed as executive producers, with Matador Content and Cutler Productions producing.

16 Comments

It’s really really hard to get excited about The content on Apple TV+.

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It’s like they really don’t want people to pay for this stuff.

The saving grace is the titillating exposé on Big Bird of course. I will pay $4.99 a month for a service that tells me the life story of a Sesame Street character.

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Yeah, I'm really looking for deeper insight into Oprah.

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Under Jony Ive's influence, one of Apple's obsessions which continued long ,after Steve Jobs had passed was thinness over all.

In Tim Cook's Apple, and it is now Tim Cook's Apple, he seems determined that Apple TV+ will be "high class," in a commercially produced almost PBS kind of way.

Luckily, while Apple can afford this side trip, TV+ is going to have to evolve if they ever expect the division to add meaningfully to their increasing service revenue - which they're counting on as a future growth enenginew to keep apple....

...which is not going to happen as long as too much of the focus is on TV Tim Cook can feel proud of rather than on what will appeal across the broad swath of Apple's key demographics...

Netflix produces some Emmy quality documentaries, but it's not what they lead with, and it's not their longest and strongest suit.

But just as the company has (belatedly) begun to come around on taking a Mac users' approach to the Mac division, I suspect they'll come around to a streaming TV service consumer's approach to streaming TV.

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I hope so Bigpics, at the moment though, it is Very Public Television. The kind of television it is important your friends know is the kind of thing you are watching, not really for entertainment purposes.