If it turns out that Apple TV+ has the highest-quality content out of all streaming services…
A new study reveals that Apple TV+ has the highest-quality content when compared to Netflix, HBO Max, Prime Video, Disney+, and Hulu. [...]
In terms of their libraries of content, Apple TV+ has the highest percentage of “good” and “excellent” at almost 86%. But [...] it has the smallest offering at just 65 titles.
… does that help make Apple TV+ a sound idea for the company?
So far I've greatly enjoyed several Apple TV+ shows (For All Mankind above all else, but also Calls and Mythic Quest), and found several other Apple TV+ shows (Little Voice, On The Rocks, The Banker, Little America, The Morning Show and Ted Lasso) to be decent-to-pretty-good. The thing is, I could as easily pick a similar number of really good shows from Netflix or Amazon Prime Video or Now1 or Disney+. There's not yet a distinctive 'type' of show that Apple TV+ is getting to be known for known for and it's way too early to tell2 whether Apple are going to prove to be better at supporting shows long enough for them to build an audience.
I don't doubt that Apple has sufficiently deep pockets to keep up the level of spending on content for the Apple TV+ streaming service for quite some time to come, but will they? Surely Apple are just one more potential source of finding for producers; yes, there are plenty of Apple devices out there, but Apple are as close-mouthed about audience numbers for their streaming service as everyone else, so who can say how well their shows are doing? Putting out numbers and surveys that use figures like this as proxies for audience numbers doesn't really address the question of which shows are doing well compared to their rivals.
In this era where the streaming services are competing for a monthly subscription from their audience, how come most of these Apple TV+ shows seems to disappear from the online discussion online within a couple of weeks of their launch.3 That cannot possibly be a good sign, can it?
[Via Daring Fireball]
- Recently rebranded from NowTV in the UK, and heavily associated with the Sky TV empire. Basically, a way (with "No contract!", as their ads emphasise) to get access to a slice of Sky TV's library for those who don't want to commit to the full package. ↩
- Come back after a decade and there might be sufficient data to form a meaningful picture of Apple's track record. ↩
- Am I just looking in the wrong places, or is it just that commentary on TV shows is so dispersed nowadays that it's a full-time job to keep on top of it? This was much better in the days of Usenet, IMHO. ↩