Apple wants to provide fresh content for its Apple Podcasts app that may eventually become TV shows for its Apple TV service. Podcast Creators: this is your hot new breeding ground to expand your audience.

Apple Inc. has a new agreement with the Pulitzer Prize-winning studio Futuro, and it’s holding talks with other firms about additional agreements.

Futuro Studios is the creator of the criminal-justice series “Suave.” Apple will have the opportunity to create a film or TV show from any Futuro podcast as a result of this arrangement, in addition to financing and producing podcasts, according to people familiar with the situation.

We’re living in an age of podcasts becoming the hot new breeding ground for movies and TV. In the before times, you’d have to spend years developing a script, trying to get in front of the right people in Hollywood and New York studios.

Then you’d have to pass the gatekeepers to get the thumbs up.

But now, you can develop a podcast, start producing, and see if it takes off. In other words, no more gate keepers. And you can do it all from your new iPhone.

Apple is currently working with At Will Media, Campside Media, Jigsaw Productions, and Pineapple Street Studios on podcasts. Look for Apple to announce more podcast and Apple TV things at the Apple TV event this Fall.

This also makes them more competitive VS. Spotify podcasts.

These agreements are with Apple’s TV studio instead of its podcast group, which means we can pretty much call Apple TV studio the streaming media challenger to Netflix, Disney+, HBOMax, Hulu and all of the others, including the nascent and quiet undercurrent of YouTube, which has made it’s own Youtube podcast offerings in the last year.

Past examples of podcasts Apple has turned into Apple TV+ offerings include “The Shrink Next Door,” which became a series with Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell. “WeCrashed” with Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway was based on the WeWork Inc. saga.

You can get an Apple TV subscription, even if you don’t have an Apple device. You can get the Apple TV box, a set top box for your TV. If you use streaming devices like Roku, Fire TV, Google TV or Android TV, you can sign up for Apple TV. You can also subscribe on PlayStation, Xbox and smart TV’s from Samsung, LG, VIZIO and Sony.

If you own any Apple devices, you can use Apple TV on an iPhone, iPad, Mac computer and using AirPlay.

The Apple TV cost is free for a one-month trial. If you subscribe it $4.99 a month, and you can start with a seven-day free trial to see if you like it. If you buy an Apple device, you get Apple TV+ free for three months, then it’s $4.99 per month.

Apple TV is a media player and AppleTV+ is a streaming service.