{"id":313882,"date":"2025-10-18T16:56:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T16:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/313882\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T16:56:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T16:56:19","slug":"apple-tv-revs-up-to-compete-for-real-in-streaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/313882\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple TV Revs Up to Compete, For Real, In Streaming"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAlmost exactly six years after it launched, Apple TV<\/a> is at an inflection point. In the span of a week, the streaming service rebranded itself, struck its first standalone bundle deal with a competitor, and inked arguably its most significant sports rights deal yet.<\/p>\n

\n\tTaken together, it suggests that the tech giant is gearing up to drive (pun intended) new subscribers and viewers to the service, which is loved among Hollywood types for its premium original content, and feared for its perceived lack of scale.<\/p>\n

\n\tApple\u2019s foray into streaming entertainment has been a slow build, with Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht essentially building a streaming service from scratch. But six years later Apple TV is still struggling to find an audience, relegated to the \u201cother streaming\u201d category in Nielsen\u2019s monthly Gauge report \u2014 below the likes of Hallmark, AMC Network and Scripps in TV usage market share. Nor does Apple TV have a single series or movie currently on the top 10 of Nielsen\u2019s streaming charts. <\/p>\n

\n\tApple has also not released any subscriber figures, though Eddy Cue, the head of the company\u2019s services division, told a podcast earlier this month that it is \u201csubstantially more\u201d than 45 million, which is what some outside analysts have estimated.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo the decision by Cue to rebrand<\/a> Apple TV+ as simply Apple TV (or as the company called the change, a \u201ca vibrant new identity\u201d), followed in short order by the major partnership with NBCUniversal to launch an Apple TV-Peacock bundle<\/a>, suggested that change was in the air.<\/p>\n

\n\tApple and Peacock were both regarded as subscale streamers, and both had been allergic to bundling outside of some telecom partnerships, but the new deal will \u201cbring Apple TV\u2019s beloved shows and movies to more viewers in more places,\u201d said Oliver Schusser, Apple\u2019s vp of Apple TV, Apple Music, Sports, and Beats.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd then on Oct. 17, Apple capped off the week with its long-expected but nonetheless blockbuster $750 million deal<\/a> for Formula One rights in the U.S. It was a deal that Cue suggested was in line with the company\u2019s long-term thinking: \u201cWe love looking forward,\u201d Cue told reporters.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is something that we\u2019ve dreamed of, in a way, and from the beginning of our vision for Apple TV, we wanted to deliver customers the best stories from the most creative storytellers,\u201d Cue said. \u201cWe launched in 2019, and we started with nine original series, and now we\u2019ve got a deep library of over 300 shows and movies and thousands of hours, and everyone on Apple TV in the U.S. will now get Formula One, they\u2019re going to get everything that Formula One has to offer, and it\u2019s going to be amazing, because we\u2019re focused on quality and creating incredible content, and there\u2019s no more incredible content than Formula One.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCue said that the timing of the Peacock bundle and F1 deal was a \u201ccoincidence,\u201d but it\u2019s just another example of how change is in the air at Apple, changing the name, changing the bundling strategy, and changing sports ambitions, which thus far have been limited to a deal with Major League Soccer, and Friday night Major League Baseball games.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tApple TV MLB Friday Night Baseball sideline reporter Tricia Whitaker interviews George Springer of the Toronto Blue Jays following a game against the Seattle Mariners in April. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVaughn Ridley\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m a huge F1 fan, but I\u2019m also a huge sports fan, and one of the things that we wanted to do if we were going to offer some level of sports is to be able to do it in a way that is what I think sports fans want, which is easy access, available, same location, same place, they know exactly where to get it, where it\u2019s coming from, all of the complexities that you deal with in sports and watching going away,\u201d Cue said, when asked by The Hollywood Reporter about how the new deal fits into the company\u2019s sports strategy. <\/p>\n

\n\tCue added, \u201cAnd I think for fans of F1 it\u2019s going to be incredibly easy. It\u2019s going to offer capabilities that they\u2019ve never had before, just because of the ability of having the app and being able to work closely with F1 and what we\u2019re able to do together that lets us differentiate. That\u2019s hard to do. It takes a complete commitment from us and from the league or the sports entity and that\u2019s the way we look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOr as CFRA analyst Angelo Zino explains: \u201cThe deal reflects Apple\u2019s strategic approach to live sports, focusing on exclusive rights that allow complete control over user experience rather than traditional sports broadcasting models.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBeyond Peacock, Apple has cut other deals over the last year in service of expanding the service, from a deal with Amazon to bring Apple TV to Prime Video Channels, to a partnership with Chase earlier this year to give Sapphire Reserve credit card holders complimentary subscriptions to Apple TV and Apple Music.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey are choices that have caught the eye of the creative community as well, a community that Apple has been deftly supporting through its high-profile and star-studded series and films.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSelfishly, I think it\u2019s great because more people get to see our show,\u201d Severance executive producer and director Ben Stiller told THR earlier this year. \u201cTo be able to broaden the audience for certain shows that sometimes people might not be able to watch because they\u2019re having to make choices on streamers \u2014 which I understand, too, it\u2019s just a strange new time in terms of how you make these choices to watch things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t Eddie Segura of Los Angeles FC, seen during an Apple TV interview before a match against Austin FC on October 12, 2025 in Austin, Texas. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tScott Wachter\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd across the advertising industry, marketing veterans are wondering whether the changes Apple has made to Apple TV (including a steep 30 percent<\/a> price hike in August) mean that even more change is coming: Perhaps a cheaper ad-supported tier?<\/p>\n

\n\tApple TV is the only major streaming service without an ad tier, though it does feature limited advertising on both Major League Soccer programming and its Friday night MLB games. A source familiar with the matter says that Apple\u2019s F1 coverage will include commercials, though consistent with ESPN\u2019s coverage, there will not be ads while cars are on the track during the Grand Prix races.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut as multiple advertising world sources note, Apple has hired its fair share of TV and streaming video veterans over the past couple of years, which, when combined with this newfound desire to cut deals to expand Apple TV\u2019s reach, is certainly suggestive of broader ambitions.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen we talk about Apple, I believe they\u2019re talking about not only technology, not only connectivity, you\u2019re talking about social relevancy,\u201d said Stefano Domenicali, the CEO of F1.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe tech giant has the social currency, now Apple wants to ride the F1 wave, its new brand, and its newfound partnerships, to streaming relevancy.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tApple TV hasn\u2019t yet cracked Nielsen\u2019s closely-watched monthly Gauge report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost exactly six years after it launched, Apple TV is at an inflection point. In the span of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":313883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4964,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-313882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-apple-tv","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115396228189444664","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}