**Apple TV+: The Emerging HBO? An Exploration of Its Growing Prestige**
Throughout its almost six years in the market, Apple TV+ has been dubbed by some as “the emerging HBO.” However, 2025 may be the year when Apple truly substantiates that assertion. Here’s the reasoning.
### Emmy Nominations Indicate Apple TV+ Leading in Quality, While HBO Excels in Quantity
Regardless of your viewpoint on Apple TV+, it is difficult to deny that 2025 has proven to be an exceptionally strong year for the streamer. Apple TV+ has reached new heights of both mainstream recognition and critical acclaim. It is delivering consistently superior content than before, and a larger audience is engaging with it.
Recent analysis of this year’s Emmy nominations backs up this claim. Apple is the sole network or platform with multiple nominees in both Comedy Series (*The Studio* and *Shrinking*) and Drama Series (*Severance* and *Slow Horses*). While HBO remains the benchmark for prestige television, Apple is certainly keeping up in the areas that attract the most attention. In the main acting categories (lead and supporting across comedy, drama, and limited series), Apple secured 22 nominations compared to HBO’s 17.
Even though HBO and Netflix both garnered more nominations than Apple TV+ overall, Apple is unmistakably succeeding with its “quality over quantity” approach.
### Severance and The Studio Expected to Secure Two Premier Awards
As mentioned, *Severance* and *The Studio* are primed for major success. *Severance* achieved 27 Emmy nominations, the highest for any TV series this year from any studio, while *The Studio* garnered 23 nominations, the highest for any comedy this year. Both shows are favored to triumph in the two major categories: Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Comedy Series.
When did that last occur? HBO accomplished it nearly a decade ago. Should Apple achieve simultaneous Drama and Comedy Series victories, it would be a monumental accomplishment, as no non-HBO network or platform has managed this since NBC won with *Friends* and *The West Wing* in 2002.
It’s not that HBO is experiencing a poor year; it actually garnered a significant number of nominations, more than ever before. However, unlike Apple, those nominations are not anticipated to convert into substantial wins in the categories that matter most. The plethora of HBO nominations is an impressive feat, but if Apple TV+ secures the major victories it is projected to, it would serve as the latest indication of outpacing HBO in its own arena: quality over quantity.
Apple TV+ is available for $9.99 per month and offers popular TV shows and films such as *Ted Lasso*, *Severance*, *The Morning Show*, *Silo*, and *Shrinking*.
