Apple is losing more than $1 billion a year on streamer Apple TV+ according to a new report

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Cosmic Smash

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Reuters article

Apple is losing more than $1 billion a year on its streaming service, the Information reported on Thursday, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The tech giant has spent more than $5 billion a year on content since launching Apple TV+ in 2019 but trimmed it by around $500 million last year, the report said.
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Industry leader Netflix had a total subscriber count of 301.63 million, according to the latest data, while Disney+ had 124.6 million users followed by Warner Bros Discovery at 116.9 million.
The iPhone maker does not break down the subscribers for Apple TV+ but it is estimated to have reached 40.4 million at the end of 2024, according to five analysts polled by Visible Alpha.
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They make good shows, they are trying to be the new HBO, but many of their shows develop very slowly. One billion seems low for me on how much they lose, because they have high production values.
 
Relative to their output I would have expected a bigger loss. They need to have a better variety of shows to attract and retain audiences and discount package their deals with Apple Arcade or other products to boost value.

Whoever green lit and spent money on Invasion is the sort of person destined to destroy their streaming effort.
 
Does it matter, aren't they one of the most outrageously profitable companies in the world at this point? They can easily afford for it to be some mid-level's passion project.
 
They have a lot of good shows but oddly they never seem to catch the mainstream blow up like shows on Netflix, Disney, etc, do.
 
They have a few good shows, but it takes forever for something good to come out. That's probably why most people only subscribe to apple tv from time to time. It's just not worth having it active all the time.
 
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They have some good stuff, I've enjoye Severance, Silo and Dark Matter and I'v heard good stuff about some other shows like Slow Horses. It's also fairly cheap too (around here it's like $5 a month).

They clearly want to take a more HBO style approach focusing more on quality over quantity, but the results seems to have been mixed so far.
 
Apple TV+ is basically an advert for Apple itself. I doubt they mind all that much.

From a UK perspective, they have great original shows, but they need some licences movies (we don't get those in the UK).
 
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I don't pay for any of those channels and my life still goes on just fine. Although I don't watch as many films as I used to.
 
RetroGamingUK said:
Apple TV+ is basically an advert for Apple itself. I doubt they mind all that much.

From a UK perspective, they have great original shows, but they need some licences movies (we don't get those in the UK).
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Yep, just like Amazon and Prime Video. I don't think they care very much about making money from these platforms.

Disney and Netflix OTOH...
 
YCoCg said:
They have a lot of good shows but oddly they never seem to catch the mainstream blow up like shows on Netflix, Disney, etc, do.
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Yeh I hear good things about a bunch of their shows but it's all word of mouth here and there. Considering how good Apple is at marketing they're strangely bad about getting the word out about their shows.

It was recently revealed that they refused to collaborate with Criterion on a physical release of Killers of the Flower Moon and have no plans to produce one. On one hand, I get it since presumably they want to dangle a prestige title like that as something to get people to subscribe. But in this streaming age we've seen some titles vanish and become impossible to view legally. So what happens if Apple decides these losses aren't worth it? Will Killers of the Flower Moon and the other Apple TV+ films and TV shows disappear without any physical releases to keep them available to the public?
 
2.3 billion active Apple devices worldwide, which all come with the Apple TV app. Apple regularly offers 3 months free subscription discounts and the service is reasonably cheap compared to others out there. It's actually a really impressive feat that it isn't successful and still losing the company money.

DKehoe said:
So what happens if Apple decides these losses aren't worth it? Will Killers of the Flower Moon and the other Apple TV+ films and TV shows disappear without any physical releases to keep them available to the public?
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I don't see that happening to be honest, but if it did they'd probably just distribute the content for purchase on the iTunes store where you can rent and buy films/shows.
 
near said:
2.3 billion active Apple devices worldwide, which all come with the Apple TV app. Apple regularly offers 3 months free subscription discounts and the service is reasonably cheap compared to others out there. It's actually a really impressive feat that it isn't successful and still losing the company money.
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Not enough reality TV garbage.

Also lack of quantity seems to encourage piracy according to friends of mine. Why subscribe when you only have 1-2 shows to download?
 
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I actually really like their stuff as a whole. Silo was good (if a bit slow), for all man kind was great, severance is good too. Is Ted lasso theirs or someone else's? Don't recall.

Also, most subscribers to Apple TV+ don't just have the service, they have Apple one which is way more. I think we pay like $40 a month for it.
 
near said:
2.3 billion active Apple devices worldwide, which all come with the Apple TV app. Apple regularly offers 3 months free subscription discounts and the service is reasonably cheap compared to others out there. It's actually a really impressive feat that it isn't successful and still losing the company money.


I don't see that happening to be honest, but if it did they'd probably just distribute the content for purchase on the iTunes store where you can rent and buy films/shows.
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Yeh you're probably right. With a company like Apple it's unlikely. A billion in loses doesn't mean the same to them as it does most other companies. It does still leave a lot to their whims though. And even buying/renting on iTunes those digital copies could just disappear someday. But I suppose there are already copies of that stuff out there in "alternative" places if people want them.
 
Also, as someone who subscribes, they have a weird policy - most of the shows are either sci-fi or clearly targeted at woman, broad targeting shows like ted lasso or severance that got some buzz are rarer (and even severance is sci-fish).
 
Shame, it's an amazing service. Only got it recently and watched Silo, Presumed Innocent, Black Bird and Severance and they were all great.
 
IntentionalPun said:
Not enough reality TV garbage.

Also lack of quantity seems to encourage piracy according to friends of mine. Why subscribe when you only have 1-2 shows to download?
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It does lack content and new releases aren't frequent enough, but the shows they do release tend to be well crafted. It's a shame, most people prefer to be spoilt for choice with these services.
 
near said:
It does lack content and new releases aren't frequent enough, but the shows they do release tend to be well crafted. It's a shame, most people prefer to be spoilt for choice with these services.
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Yeah I've pretty consistently had something to watch but I ignored my sub for like the first 2 years lol

Severance / Silo / Dark Matter / Foundation I have really enjoyed (Silo less than the others but Season 1 was great.) Then you have random stuff like Shrinking that I enjoyed, and Ted Laso (that was really only good Season 1 also.)

But yeah people want a lot of filler, many people's habits aren't too different from the days of cable channel flipping.

If Max (or even before it HBO Max) was only HBO's shows there wouldn't be a ton of subs either. Even before it re-branded much of the content was not the HBO prestige productions they are known for.
 
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I'm glad I saw this thread. It reminded me that I had to cancel my three month trial that would have renewed tomorrow. I don't think we have watched anything on it in the last two months. Severance did nothing for me. Stopped watching after 4 episodes of season 1.
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Nothing on the service is 10/10.

Severance is the closest they have come but ive yet to watch season 2 and its not close to being finished.

The Servant was decent enough.
 
I have been getting a free 3 months every year when I get a new phone for work. I get excited each time until I realize how trash it is. It's like Netflix, but boring and nicer to look at.
There is some good stuff in there for sure (Severance, Bad Monky, Shrinking Season 1 - 2 is terrible), but overall, I would be shocked if it did make any money at all. Think they'll be fine though.
 
theyre building a base, they can write this off for along time with how much cash they have on hand, they are getting people into the ecosystem. its definitely light on content but the content they do put out is like 9/10 bangers
 
Dr.Morris79 said:
We're not getting a Severance season 3 are we.. :pie_thinking:
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Seems like that's been one of their few to break out and get some buzz. I wouldn't imagine they'd suddenly halt production and drop the service in the immediate future. But if they were to drop it I'd imagine there's a good chance someone else might pay to take the rights to Severance off their hands.
 
DKehoe said:
Seems like that's been one of their few to break out and get some buzz. I wouldn't imagine they'd suddenly halt production and drop the service in the immediate future. But if they were to drop it I'd imagine there's a good chance someone else might pay to take the rights to Severance off their hands.
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Id wager theres not many willing to take on a budget of 200million per season for a faily niche show.
 
Not enough people mention Mythic Quest, it's a brilliant show that takes the piss out of game studios and how they're managed.
 
Damn, this thread made me check my subscription and they raised it by $8/mo.

I'm paying almost $40/mo for apple one (which is mainly for the iCloud + Music, but includes ALL of their services) plus another $10 for an extra 2TB of iCloud. I mostly need this for work, but I let my parents on the plan as well so they have full backups of their phones and whatnot.

I'm trapped in the convenience of their walled garden, though, so I'll probably just keep paying this for the rest of my life. Having full automatic iCloud backup on my computer and phone is so ridiculously nice, there's no way I could go back.

It's also nice knowing that I could lose/destroy my phone or laptop at any point, and still have all of my data preserved and accessible. But god damn, I sure am paying for that privilege. 😵‍💫
 
Rival said:
I'm glad I saw this thread. It reminded me that I had to cancel my three month trial that would have renewed tomorrow. I don't think we have watched anything on it in the last two months. Severance did nothing for me. Stopped watching after 4 episodes of season 1.
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You know it's easier to cancel as soon as you sign-up for the trial. You still get 3 months free, and you don't have to bother reminding yourself to cancel.
 
It's my favorite streamer for shows and I'm enjoying it will it lasts in its current format. Excellent production values. Highest video and audio quality of all the services.

Eventually they'll stop seeing it as a prestige brand advertising vehicle and start pumping out a bunch of reality garbage aimed at the lowest common denominator with ad breaks every 10 minutes.
 
mitch1971 said:
You know it's easier to cancel as soon as you sign-up for the trial. You still get 3 months free, and you don't have to bother reminding yourself to cancel.
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I pay £3 for Paramount+ and its not worth cancelling for that price on the off chance i want a wank over the ginger bird out of Yellowstone. Thats the swet spot imo, if you are charging more then im afraid ill be stealing it.
 
It is also worth noting that only Apple started with zero TV shows in its catalog. Apple made a mistake by not acquiring some content to fill out its catalog.

All the other streamers had older content to supplement its new offerings.
 
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Subscription services like this are a winner take most business. Unless they can have substantially more and better content there is no point to it other than as a vanity project.
 
I've been meaning to finish severance. I wish I didn't listen to a Ben Stiller interview where he spoiled what was happening in that show.
 
Bitmap Frogs said:
most people probably believe you can only watch on apple devices
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We don't have Apple TV anymore (I got a code with my computer and didn't pay for it afterwards) but when we did, they didn't have an Android app for phones, you had to access their service through a web browser.

I just checked and Apple TV launched in 2019, looks like the Android app came out last month. So, kinda understandable.

They also kinda messed up the branding because people think "apple TV" when the service is called "Apple TV+" if you Google Apple TV, you might end up looking at the Apple TV streaming device, which you might well conclude is necessary to watch their shows.

So yeah, I can well imagine they have turned people away for years.
 
Illiterate Actual said:
At least they didn't make Rings of Power.
The Lord Of The Rings GIF by Amazon Prime Video
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I wish they did, their output is honestly the most polished of any streaming service and the highest quality of the last few years. But because of that it seems to take longer to produce.

Also as if Apple give a fuck about a billion dollars lol, rounding error.
 
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