Apple Inc. has targeted $1 billion in spending for original television series and films over the next year, looking to establish itself as a buyer of premium entertainment, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous individuals.

Already, Apple has signaled that it's gearing up to be a significant Hollywood player with the hiring of Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht -- longtime presidents at Sony Pictures Television -- tasked with building a slate of content. And this week Apple said it recruited Matt Cherniss, ex-G.M. of WGN America and Tribune Studios, to head development for the original video group.

Still, even with an annual budget of a billion dollars, the tech giant would trail Netflix and Amazon. Netflix, the subscription streaming-video leader, plans to spend $7 billion on content in 2017, while analyst peg Amazon's spending on programming for Prime Video at around $4.5 billion.

To date, Apple's forays into original video programming have been in support of Apple Music subscription service. It bowed unscripted competition series "Planet of the Apps" this summer, and launched CBS's "Carpool Karaoke" spinoff from James Corden's late-night show last week.

For Apple, spending $1 billion on original entertainment would barely make a dent in its balance sheet: The company had more than $261 billion in cash and equivalents at the end of its 2017 fiscal year.