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The release of popular Tom Hanks movie "Greyhound" saw a major jump in Apple TV+ subscribers when it launched, but most of those subscribers did not stick around, according to data compiled by subscriber measurement service Antenna and shared by The Wall Street Journal.

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Apple TV+ saw around 60,000 sign-ups when Greyhound was released on July 10, 2020, with that number not counting those who signed up for free long-term trials for purchasing an Apple TV product. Fewer than 50 percent of those new users remained subscribed at the six month mark after the "Greyhound" launch, with 30 percent of subscribers who signed up for the movie debut dropping within the first two months.

Apple is not alone in finding it difficult to retain subscribers who sign up specifically for a major new TV show or movie launch. Similar trends were seen with the Disney+ launch of "Hamilton," and the HBO Max premiere of "Wonder Woman 1984."
All streaming services see a portion of U.S. customers unsubscribe every month and have been signing up more users than they lose over time. But viewers who join a service right after a big release tend to leave significantly faster than the average streaming customer, according to an analysis of Antenna data.
TV shows like "Ted Lasso" have the potential to keep subscribers for a longer period of time because they are released on a week to week basis, unlike movies that can be watched in one sitting.

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Streaming services that want to retain customers need to continually produce popular content to keep subscribers engaged and paying out monthly subscription fees. It's important for streaming services to have a "couple big, nice theatrical movies every quarter to make it feel like it's really valuable," Moffett Nathanson analyst Michael Nathanson told The Wall Street Journal.

Apple has never provided details on how many Apple TV+ subscribers that it has, but the numbers are likely to be far behind popular services that include Disney+, Hulu, and Netflix. Disney+ in particular has seen incredible success since its November 2019 launch, and in November, the streaming service had over 118 million subscribers.

Disney+, Netflix, and Hulu all have much more expansive content offerings, as these services include TV shows and movies sourced from third-party production companies and television networks. Apple TV+ includes almost all original content, and it has not been around long enough for Apple to build up a significant back catalog.

Antenna's data is aggregated from third-party apps that help users manage their email inboxes or stick to a monthly budget, and it includes information from a sample of five million U.S. users.

Article Link: Apple TV+ Subscribers Who Join for Major Releases Like 'Greyhound' Don't Stick Around
 
You can go down a rabbit hole to find something on Netflix, Hulu, and Prime and end up with something at least. 10 minutes browsing Apple TV and you know you have either seen it or don't want to see it before you exit out of the app and go back to Netflix, Hulu, and Prime. Disney+ isn't much better if you don't watch movies and tv shows for kids.
 
Couldn't agree more with these suscribers. The best part is that Apple has made it so easy to manage one's subscriptions -- I suscribe to one service one month and switch to the next. I suppose that's the one true benefit of IAP.

I just wish they made more content available for purchase on iTunes.
 
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I read an almost identical article less than an hour ago except it was HBO Max centric and talked about a lot of new subscriptions for Wonder Woman 1984 that were cancelled in less than 6 months. It had all the same pretty graphs, etc.These articles are cut/paste clickbait garbage that somehow passes for news and journalism these days.
 
Just about everything we’ve watched on Apple TV+ has been top notch. But if you don’t have the budget to subscribe to all 387 streaming services… well, Apple TV+ is never going to be your first choice, just because of the small library of content.
 
It is not good when Apple releases new episodes to quality programs and then radio silence. I enjoyed Ted Lasso, Defending Jacob, Mosquito Coast and The Morning Show but there has been quite the gap lately. I have rented a few movies but it just seems like a money grab to me. Hell, even Netflix has better content and original series but they gently announced a price increase so like Apple they will have record increases in revenue.
 
It's perhaps the poorest content-to-dollar service in existence, so...

I only have it because I have Apple One, and I hate that I'm counted as a subscriber of this weak effort by Apple.

Turn the Tv/Movie store into a streaming library, then we'll talk.
Same here.. unfortunately 2TB of storage + family music + tax = about the same as apple one.
I get to now subsidize apples garbage like: arcade, news, tv.
 
I read an almost identical article less than an hour ago except it was HBO Max centric and talked about a lot of new subscriptions for Wonder Woman 1984 that were cancelled in less than 6 months. It had all the same pretty graphs, etc.These articles are cut/paste clickbait garbage that somehow passes for news and journalism these days.
HBO Max is by far my favorite and the one I find most valuable. I means its $150/year and every time I watch a theatrical release from home thats $50 I save.
 
There's just too many streaming services with content fragmented across the internet to the point where it's just not worth the cost of trying something new. At this point, I'm close to whittling down my streaming service to just HBO Max. I have Amazon Prime, but never watch it, and I can find nothing of value on Netflix. My wife keeps bugging me to watch Ozark, so I keep it on the hook for now, but we still haven't started the series.

There's amazing things in the world just past the pixels...
 
This topic was covered in depth on CNBC earlier today, in the 10am West Coast hour, I believe.

It was interesting enough, with some good graphs, that I actually paid close attention.

The focus was Netflix, but it also covered the other streaming services (with nice sub graphs).

A video of it is probably available somewhere.
 
Streaming services that want to retain customers need to continually produce popular content to keep subscribers engaged and paying out monthly subscription fees.
That pretty much sums it up. It's quite easy to cancel a service and sign in again on for specific content. Very much an a la carte and on-demand approach. If not already, there should be apps that help you with this: select what you want to watch, then optimize when to hop on, hop off.
 
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If a streaming service want to be competitive, they need to make content not only targeted to one audience. I don’t want to sign up for a service that only serves to spread their propaganda type of content and anything outside it is (insert your qualifying adjective here).

Variety is what made TV shows good. And it is what is lacking in most streaming services today. All in all, YouTube still has the most variety of them all - not because of their original content, but because of the small content creators on the platform.
 
I don't have any of the streaming services because I'm not a big fan of watching TV, short of occasional OTA material I get for free of local broadcasts. I would be one of those people that might subscribe for something and then cancel as soon as Im done, so I don't get charged month after month. I have TV+ simply because I have the one subscription because I get the other services that I rarely use because it costs the same as I was paying before. I don't use Arcarde, Fitness and rarely TV+. My wife and I did watch Greyhound, and watched Finch the other day, which my wife hated. It was not a great movie, but I like Tom Hanks, so he could just sit in a chair and do nothing for 90 minutes and I'd probably be okay with that.
 
If a streaming service needs to be competitive, they need to make content not only targeted to one audience. I don’t want to sign up for a service that only serves to spread their propaganda type of content and anything outside it is (insert your qualifying adjective here).

Variety is what made TV shows good. And it is what is lacking in most streaming services today. All in all, YouTube still has the most variety of them all - not because of their original content, but because of the small content creators on the platform.

I agree with the propaganda comment. I wanted to like a few series on TV+, but the more I watched, the deeper the propaganda went, so I just stopped.
 
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