Apple in Talks to Bring Ads to Apple TV+

[orbital~debris]

Lowering the price could help, but the lower price options on the market have so many hidden costs Apple could probably keep the price the same if they just marketed the AppleTV like they cared that it existed?

The lower priced options on the market are subsidized by the data their manufactures collect about their customers then sell...

Add to that the number of big box stores that sell "installation service" for ~$50/box that amounts to nothing more than plugging it into power and HDMI and walking away... sometimes they may connect it to wifi.. maybe... (the total price of a slow as molasses in January "affordable" Roku after that bull-butter is HIGHER than a refurb AppleTV... can't make this ish up...)

Apple could probably expand their market more by promoting the privacy angle (They know everything you're watching you dirty dirty boy!) and how easy it is to get setup and streaming.


But, let's be real.

Apple will probably never do either of those things.

I really would love to see Apple market tvOS & Apple TV – distinctly from tv+ – using TV advertisements, billboards & bus shelters in a punchy way like they used to with iPod.

In print, tell everyone it exists, mention the privacy, and describe how it unifies TV streaming services into one queue. On TV, show everyone how it's better than the competition.

(Also, throw in a year's tv+ subscription when you buy, give people a lengthy chance to experience the content.)

 

[Cervisia]

Nice to see some data – looks like the source is Variety.

Variety also have this in another article (https://variety.com/2023/biz/entert...-tv-movies-or-live-sports-in-2022-1235525708/ - emphasis added), which gives a bit of relative perspective to the piracy visit & bandwidth numbers:

"Approximately 23 million U.S. adults (11%) pirated content in the last year, according to an exclusive survey fielded last month for VIP+ by YouGov."

And:

"Whilst the vast majority of Americans are law-abiding when it comes to content consumption, a sizable proportion confess to dabbling with illegal downloads or streams for TV shows, movies or live sports."

I see your point about having to search multiple services being detrimental to ease of use. Apple's solution with the way their TV app works to minimise this (Netflix being the notable holdout having a negative impact here on completeness). But with ease of use I was really referring to 'non-tech' people who have already found the transition from 'regular', point remote & click TV to streaming TV challenging. Picture them getting the entire process (which itself is ever-evolving) working so they can relax and watch a show they're interested in with minimal hassle…

USA accounts for 4.23% of world population. A lot of people live in countries where "pirating" is de facto decriminalized or even legal. And that 95.77% has the further incentive of geographical restrictions. For example, Netflix offered here for roughly 10% of it's US catalouge for the same price a few years back. A lot of people never stopped pirating,

 

[Chungry]

I really would love to see Apple market tvOS & Apple TV – distinctly from tv+ – using TV advertisements, billboards & bus shelters in a punchy way like they used to with iPod.

In print, tell everyone it exists, mention the privacy, and describe how it unifies TV streaming services into one queue. On TV, show everyone how it's better than the competition.

(Also, throw in a year's tv+ subscription when you buy, give people a lengthy chance to experience the content.)

Mentioning privacy, like private relay, is probably not something they want to do at this point given the dismal reliability.

 

[mike2q]

Apple may not have invented ads in streaming but like always they wait until they're sure they can do it best before they introduce a new feature. I'll bet these will be the best advertisements Apple has ever done.

 

[brofkand]

And into the trash it goes.

After the free trial I got stapled to a Best Buy receipt ran out, I never gave Apple TV+ a second thought.

 

[Chungry]

Apple may not have invented ads in streaming but like always they wait until they're sure they can do it best before they introduce a new feature. I'll bet these will be the best advertisements Apple has ever done.

LOL

 

[randian]

What I can imagine they could do is something like paying more to have fewer ads, but not zero ads.

I expect eventually we won't even get that. It will be full ads if you want any level of service.

 

[germinator]

The final nail in the coffin of AppleTV

 

[Astrohunter]

Luckily you can get ad-free plan on torrents.

 

[frownface]

Everyone, cancel all subscriptions and start using Kodi. It's the only way we can win the price increase war. If we keep subscribing, they'll keep raising the prices while at the same time making the service worse.

In theory, yes.

In practice; as netflix's increased subscriber count has shown; people are collectively too weak and disorganised and would bend over and take it (while grumbling of course)

 

[trabera]

I've canceled all other streaming services because they introduced ads and higher prices. AppleTV+ went from 6.99/mo to 9.99/mo less than one year ago. (Costco used to have a $64.99/yr plan!) If they go the same route, I will cancel. Easy solution.

 

[trabera]

Ads in a paid subscription?!? Are we kidding?!

I would have accepted a small increase in price, but not this.

Already? They raised their price almost 50% only 9 months ago.

 

[triptolemus]

At least with various streaming services, they offer subscribers the CHOICE of going with ads or ad-free.

Except they don't. Pre-roll ads for their own content and pause ads for third-party advertisers are becoming the norm on the "ad free" tiers and services.

There will be no such thing as "ad free" very soon. It's coming full circle -- back to paying to be advertised to, a la cable TV.

 

[Zanton68]

Ads? Fantastic. They never ruin anything.

 

[emulator]

Looks around. Am I the only one who does free 3 month trials every few months? Lol.

Of course not. Never paid a cent yet have tv+/arcade/music/icloud50gb for years. They (BB, Target, Walmart+, etc) just keep throwing these codes at us all the time, just have to rotate among family members or expand the family if needed.

 

[dmw7]

Ads in a paid subscription?!? Are we kidding?!

I would have accepted a small increase in price, but not this.

- and for that very reason, I have cancelled my Prime subscription. Ads interrupting the show, rather than merely at the start of a show is absolutely unacceptable.

 

[Neonblue]

To be honest, I was strongly opposed to ads on Amazon Prime but In reality it’s really not that bad. If this means a cheaper subscription option (but not at the expense of lower resolution) then I’m all for it.

 

[ninecows]

To be honest, I was strongly opposed to ads on Amazon Prime but In reality it’s really not that bad. If this means a cheaper subscription option (but not at the expense of lower resolution) then I’m all for it.

Some might say I’m pessimistic but I predict that there will just be a more expensive ad free option. Maybe the first iteration will be a cheaper ad based, but 6 months later prices will go up on both options.

It’s like 1984 and the ministry of plenty announce that the chocolate rations are up with 5 grams to 25 grams/week and all evidence of the rations being 30 last week is gone.

 

[lk400]

judging by the sometimes jarring Apple and beats products stuck in your face all the time in these shows, I had assumed there already were ads.

 

[iMac The Knife]

If you don't pirate anything then what's in your Plex library?

Regardless, setting up, maintaining and populating a Plex server is a hassle. The comment you were responding to, "for the majority, ease of access wins out every time, and this means subscribe & ▶️" absolutely applies.


I think ATV+ has the highest quality bar of any of the big streamers. It's the only one I'm willing to pay for. Slow Horses and For All Mankind are great, certainly, but there are loads of others.

• Silo
• Severance
• Mr Corman (I absolutely loves that series, such a shame nobody seems to have watched it)
• Dark Matter
• The first season of The Morning Show (but then stop)
• Sugar
• Bad Sisters
• The Big Door Prize
• Prehistoric Planet
• Shining Girls
• Drops of God.

In the second tier, I'd put:

• Hello Tomorrow
• See (just makes it - it's kinda naff, but enjoyably so)
• Invasion (maybe - I can't make my mind up on that)
• Constellation
• The Crowded Room (almost first tier - it gets great, but it's soooo slow to get going)
• Shrinking
• The Changeling
• The Shrink Next Door

I'm looking forward to Pachinko and Sunny too, though I haven't watched them yet.



The short answer is: when they took the filler out, and or made the episodes longer (and actually shorter series with less filler have long been common outside the US). Episodes now are generally an hour long (or more), while in the broadcast TV days they would often be 45mins (for an hour slot with adverts) or barely more than 20mins for a half-hour slot. I think 6 is still considered quite short, most series I see on Apple TV seem to be 8 to 10. 10 epodes at 1 hour each is 10 hours. 22 (a common season length in the old days) at 45 minutes each is 16.5 hours, so it's not actually much shorter. Slow Horses does have short seasons, but they also seem to churn them out quite quickly.

You do know that you can rip DVDs that you've paid for and add them to your Plex library, don't you? Setting up and maintaining a Plex server might seem like a hassle to you, but I didn't have a problem doing it and neither did any of my friends. Have you ever set up and maintained your own Plex server before? It doesn't sound like you have, otherwise you would already know that you don't have to pirate everything you have on your Plex server. Also, I'm very happy that I'm not in the majority the article mentions, which consists of clueless and/or lazy people who want to pay money for the ease of subscribe and play.

 

[svish]

Hopefully Apple will launch a plan at lower price point.

 

[mazz0]

You do know that you can rip DVDs that you've paid for and add them to your Plex library, don't you?

I do know that. Do you know that if you rip DVDs you've bought and share the resulting digital files with other people, that's piracy? This isn't even some debatable "ooh, technically you *could* call that piracy" argument - it's piracy 101. Where do you think the videos people torrent come from (or came from, in the era of DVDs)? What you're doing is completely standard piracy, just on a very small scale (you're only sharing with your friends).

I'm very happy that I'm not in the majority the article mentions, which consists of clueless and/or lazy people who want to pay money for the ease of subscribe and play.

Good for you, I'm glad there are people like you who can be bothered managing Plex servers (I can't be bothered myself, but I use other people's Plex servers all the time). But the comment you were replying to wasn't making a judgement call on whether being lazy is good or bad, it was just acknowledging the fact that most people prefer the convenience of something that just works, even if they have to pay for it. That's not Plex (not for the person setting it up anyway - if someone else does the piracy and maintains the server then yeah, Plex is a nice lazy way, that's the way I use it).

 

[webkit]

Except they don't. Pre-roll ads for their own content and pause ads for third-party advertisers are becoming the norm on the "ad free" tiers and services.

There will be no such thing as "ad free" very soon. It's coming full circle -- back to paying to be advertised to, a la cable TV.

Ads for other shows/movies have existed on premium channels like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, etc. going back to their beginnings so if we want to count those, "ad-free" has never really existed even on premium channels and therefore today's streaming services are no different.

Pause ads may appear but only when a viewer specifically pauses a show/movie, and sometimes not even then. If the viewer doesn't pause, there are no potential ads other than those mentioned above which, as I stated, have appeared on premium channels going back to the 1970s.

The ads that people are complaining about on here are the "intrusive" ads that can appear with ad-supported plans during a show/movie, which is different.

Unless the number of "ad-free only" customers is extremely small and all the complaining about intrusive ads on forums like this represents only a tiny portion of the population, I think ad-free (as it is called) will continue to be an option.

 

[Yammabot]

It’s sad to be watching the beginning of the end for Apple. Lack luster products, poor to Microsoft level software, constant updates, privacy degradation, now the introduction of ads to bolster a failing bottom line. Valuation above all else, it’s a bad ethos.

 

[iMac The Knife]

I do know that. Do you know that if you RIP DVDs you've bought and share the resulting digital files with other people, that's piracy? This isn't even some debatable "ooh, technically you *could* call that piracy" argument - it's piracy 101. Where do you think the videos people torrent come from (or came from, in the era of DVDs)? What you're doing is completely standard piracy, just on a very small scale (you're only sharing with your friends).

Can you post a link from a reliable source to a single Plex user who was sharing content that they'd 100% paid for via Plex to a small group of friends (under five in my case) that was convicted of piracy in the USA? While you're at it, can you also post a link to the universal law in the USA that states that sharing your media library which contains only content that you've paid for with a small number of friends via Plex is illegal?