Apple needs to deliver on its Apple TV Plus ambitions
Outside of excited Apple executives, no one thought much of Apple TV Plus. Even with $6 billion allocated for content and a roster of talent that included J.J. Abrams, Reese Witherspoon, and Oprah Winfrey, little on Apple TV Plus shined at launch. With the exception of The Morning Show, Apple TV Plus barely managed to enter the conversation, while other new entrants like Disney Plus soared right out the gate.
But streaming isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. The anniversary of Apple TV Plus arrives with the platform getting better each month, but it’s still not where Apple needs it to be.
It’s impossible to ignore the most obvious flailing that Apple TV Plus is facing: there’s no back catalog to keep people around once they’ve finished watching the 31 TV series and handfuls of movies currently on the platform. To compare, Apple TV Plus has 400 times less movies than Netflix, and very few of those movies on Apple TV Plus are must-watch programming. The Morning Show, Ted Lasso, and Mythic Quest are a few exceptions, but that’s hardly enough to ask people to spend $5 a month — and so Apple hasn’t, giving the majority of its subscribers the ability to stream over the last 12 months for free.
