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Good morning from the newsroom of the Financial Times.

Today is Tuesday, August 20th. Good morning from the Newsroom of the Financial Times.

Today is Tuesday, August 20th, and this is your FT news briefing.

Apple is throwing down more than $6 billion for original shows in order to compete with the likes of Netflix, Disney, and HBO.

And Boris Johnson is upping his efforts to ditch the Irish backstop provision from the existing Brexit withdrawal agreement.

Plus I talk with the F.T.'s Richard Henderson about a bold move from a group of some of the most powerful business leaders in the United States.

I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day.

Apple is putting more than $6 billion towards new programming ahead of the launch of its video streaming service,

and it's doing so as it tries to catch up with the other streaming giants.

The iPhone maker has been getting ready for this

foray into media for a couple of years. It hired Jamie Erlich and Zach Van Amberg

from Sony Pictures Television in 2017 to head up the new video unit. The pair had an initial budget of $1 billion

to commission original shows and movies in their first year. But the total committed has so far past 6 billion.

So where's this money going?

One series is called The Morning Show starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Correll,

Apple has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this project alone.

Sources told the FT that that figure amounts to a higher price per episode

than HBO's Game of Thrones. That series reportedly cost $15 million for each

episode in its final season. The TV Plus launch comes as Apple tries to boost the company's

digital media and cloud services and not depend only on the iPhone.

...