Apple TV+
All of the other players in the streaming wars have an obvious reason to be in this fight. Most are content producers who are looking to build a direct connection to their audiences. Amazon knew that Prime subscribers were its best customers and wanted to provide an extra incentive for you to sign up. Apple is the outlier in that they don’t have an existing content business nor do they have a large bundled subscription service (at least not yet).
Steve Jobs was adamant that Apple stay focused on its core products and avoided getting into new businesses. On his deathbed he advised Larry Page not to allow Google’s attention to stray from search, advice that was completely ignored. Tim Cook did take the founder’s guidance to heart and often bragged that Apple’s entire product line fit onto a dining room table.
However that’s no longer the winning strategy for a big tech company. The Frightful Five are developing vast ecosystems in order for consumers to see them as a one-stop-shop for a variety of technology needs and maximize their ARPU (average revenue per user).
The iPhone is arguably the most successful consumer product of all time, but its growth had plateaued, so Apple turned to services as a driver of sales growth. Apple saw the streaming wars coming and thought that it could profit by being at the center of them.
The Apple TV app is the key to this strategy which acts as a portal to your steaming life. From here you can see the shows you’re currently watching on the various services and suggestions for new content. The notable exception is Netflix which refuses to integrate because it believes its pull is strong enough for you to go directly to its app and stay there.
The Apple TV app also showcases content from services you aren’t subscribed to, and you can easily sign up for other streamers directly in the app, giving Apple a cut of the ongoing subscription fees. As icing on the cake for Apple’s middleman front in the streaming wars, it offers its own premium content for the lowest price in this market, or free for 12 months with the purchase of a new product.
So how are these shows?
I have thoroughly enjoyed For All Mankind which reveals an alternate history where the US/Soviet space race didn’t end and Mythic Quest: Raven’s banquet, a workplace comedy inside a game studio. Both are well produced and very entertaining. I am tempted to check out The Morning Show, which with all of its star-power is the crown jewel of the service so far. It has mediocre critic ratings but all of the people I know who watched it recommend it. The show that seems to have impressed critics the most thus far is Little America, an anthology series about immigrants in the US.
Many of the other offerings have misfired. See was supposed to be Apple’s answer to Game of Thrones set in a future where humanity has gone blind, but has an Rotten Tomatoes score of 44%. I enjoyed Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories anthology show from the 80s, but the TV+ reboot also sits at 44%. There have also been two new shows based on popular podcasts, neither of which seems to be a critical hit.
Believe it or not Netflix’s slate of original content wasn’t all successful either before it became the original programming powerhouse that it is today. Apple is investing heavily in this market including partnering with Richard Plepler, a 25 year veteran of HBO, so hopefully there are more examples of For All Mankind in the service’s future than See. Also Apple is looking to make a deal with the Pac-12 Conference to bring live sports to the service.
How successful TV+ is from a business perspective is hard to tell. Apple hasn’t announced any subscriber numbers, but it’s safe to say that they number in the 10s of millions though less than the 50 million that Disney+ has. A huge portion of those existing subscribers signed up for their free one year trial, so there will be a true test later this year when Apple tries to convert those trials into paying customers.
So far Apple’s entry in the streaming wars has been a mixed bag and I have some thoughts about how it might turn its service into a solid success story, but I’ll save those for another post.
