According to Variety Magazine Apple TV+ is losing approximately $1billion a year. Apple spends roughly $4.5 billion on its original content and is thought to have 45 million subscribers. As Apple don’t publish subscriber numbers for their Apple TV+ service these numbers cannot be confirmed. Apple has not commented on the return on investment timeline for its original content creation. Or whether this includes licensing Apple content to external broadcasters and steaming platforms.
If reports are true that Apple spent circa 20 billion dollars producing content for Apple TV+. It’s a surprise to learn they’ve captured less than 0.5% of the streaming market worldwide.
One show inparticular called Severance is rumoured to have increased Apple subscription numbers by over 130%. The show is rumoured to cost in excess of £15m per episode. So if you do the math these are very steep customer acquisition costs. Apple’s mantra in all things is about producing excellence. Excellence at a cost that translates into value. So Apple could end up with the best content library even if it is not the biggest. I suggest this would be a good place to start, especially if they are happy to license content to other platforms.
So much content is so mediocre to poor, there may well be a premium content market for premium content. A kind of Aplle TV++. The USP is that you’ll be watching consistenty high quality content not available anywhere else. At £9.99 a month in the UK currently this represents excellent value for money.
