Apple Inc. launches its TV+ original video streaming service Friday, ending years of anticipation about the company\u2019s\u00a0next act in television. But it will lack what many consumers want: a giant library of their favorite movies and shows.<\/p>\n
Over the past decade, the iPhone maker\u00a0has explored building its own TV set, buying major content firms\u00a0like Time Warner\u00a0and partnering with cable companies on new TV set-top boxes. Instead, it landed on a combination of a video aggregation\u00a0app, on-demand access to pay-TV channels like HBO and Starz\u00a0and a $4.99 monthly subscription service of original movies and television shows.<\/p>\n
The subscription service will be available\u00a0on millions of iPhones, iPads, Macs and\u00a0Apple TV boxes in 100 countries beginning Friday, just days ahead of Disney+ and months before comparable services from Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. Apple TV+ is currently focused entirely on original content, but its lack\u00a0of a library of older fan favorites puts the service behind its rivals.<\/p>\n
Apple\u2019s original slate of content includes fewer than 10\u00a0programs\u00a0coming Friday\u00a0and a total of 15 in the initial slate. Disney+ is scheduled to begin Nov. 12, and it, too, is\u00a0advertising 15 titles from among\u00a0its first round of originals. Similarly, Peacock from Comcast\u2019s NBCUniversal, is coming in April 2020 with\u00a016 titles, while AT&T\u2019s HBO Max, launching at $14.99 a month in May 2020,\u00a0has dozens in the works. Apple has said it plans to add new titles on a monthly basis to its service, meaning the $4.99 value will increase over time. Still, many people subscribe to the top video services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video primarily for their giant back catalogs of content.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe number of streaming households that go out of their way to subscribe to Apple TV+ will be fairly limited initially due to limited content,\u201d according to\u00a0Michael Olson, an analyst at\u00a0Piper Jaffray who covers Apple and Netflix Inc. Olson said a survey of 1,500 Netflix subscribers found\u00a023% would subscribe to Apple\u2019s offering and that interest is \u201cmoderate, not overwhelmingly high,\u201d in part due to limited content. Video-streaming services typically start with a back catalog to \u201ccreate early interest\u201d before \u201ctransitioning\u201d to originals, he said.<\/p>\n
Apple TV+\u00a0is part of the Cupertino, California-based company\u2019s strategy to generate more revenue from services and\u00a0provide\u00a0new ways\u00a0to keep its loyal customers\u00a0tied to the iPhone. Services generated\u00a0sales of $12.5 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter, an increase of 18% from the period a year earlier, Apple said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Apple is pushing its video service like it does its devices, airing commercials during prime cable TV hours, putting up billboards in major cities\u00a0and showcasing coming shows\u00a0on its website and social media. The company\u00a0has clearly raised\u00a0enough awareness to quickly gain subscribers. And Apple\u00a0is\u00a0doing something it has rarely done in the past: allowing\u00a0the service to work on\u00a0third-party devices like Samsung TVs and\u00a0Amazon set-top-boxes, giving it a larger potential customer base.<\/p>\n
The concern about the lack of a catalog of reruns and old movies isn\u2019t trivial and will make it difficult for Apple to fully compete. Disney+ will come to the market with the \u201cSimpsons\u201d and hundreds\u00a0of Disney movies.\u00a0HBO Max will have hit movies to stream like \u201cJaws\u201d and \u201cErin Brockovich\u201d and famous TV shows like \u201cFriends\u201d and \u201cBig Bang Theory.\u201d Netflix has blockbusters like \u201cSeinfeld\u201d and, until it moves over to\u00a0Peacock, which has \u201cThe Office,\u201d\u00a0and a catalog estimated at more than 2,700 movies and 1,500 shows. Amazon.com Inc., which rivals Apple in consumer gadgets as well, has hundreds of older movies to stream on its Prime Video service.<\/p>\n
Netflix and Amazon Prime have both been building up their original content libraries for years, but they, too,\u00a0 started out with slim pickings, including only a few original programs\u00a0initially. Today, Netflix is estimated to stream more than\u00a01,200 original titles. Disney, NBC, and HBO\u2019s services also have the built in advantage of giant content arms within their own companies, something Apple lacks. While Apple has\u00a0thousands of movies and TV shows available on iTunes for single download purchases or rentals, it\u00a0hasn\u2019t shown the willingness to turn those deals into a subscription component for TV+.<\/p>\n
Proponents said\u00a0Apple\u2019s service\u00a0wasn\u2019t designed with a back catalog of shows\u00a0in mind, but with pricing a few dollars below services such as Netflix with giant libraries, consumers may find the lack of old favorites\u00a0a clear omission.<\/p>\n
With its pricing strategy, Apple has shown it recognizes\u00a0the limitations of the\u00a0service. At $4.99, it costs much less than\u00a0Apple Music, Apple News+\u00a0and the company\u2019s\u00a0top cloud-storage offering, and in a move unprecedented for Apple, is bundled free for a year with any new device purchase. By necessity, it\u2019s also far cheaper than most of its rivals, though HBO Max will also be free to some AT&T subscribers. Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said Wednesday the service is priced at $4.99 a month to encourage as many subscribers to sign up as quickly as possible. And, in a rare statement, the company said the service and pricing strategy would be immaterial, at least initially, to its financial results.<\/p>\n
So far, the reviews of Apple’s first slate of original shows indicate\u00a0why a backlog of content is so important. Variety called \u201cThe Morning Show\u201d with Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon\u00a0a “streaming misfire” and the Hollywood Reporter said \u201cSee,\u201d starring\u00a0Jason Momoa,\u00a0\u201cisn’t close to a good show.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Apple is banking on its service being good enough for its loyal users to pay for it a year from now, and even if the company can get just a quarter of its new iPhone buyers to sign up after a year, Apple TV+ will be a multibillion-dollar addition to its growing services arsenal.<\/p>\n
Apple Inc. launches its TV+ original video streaming service Friday, ending years of anticipation about the company\u2019s\u00a0next act in television.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":319555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[605,2638],"class_list":["post-325931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-apple","tag-apple-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325931"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}