Malcolm Owen
Subscribers of Apple TV+ could get a lot more choice of what to watch, with Apple allegedly in talks to license more Hollywood films for the service.
In March, Apple TV+ made available a selection of 51 classic movies for subscribers to watch for free. Following the experiment, Apple seems keen to add many more choices to its catalog.
Apple is reportedly in talks with major Hollywood studios to try and license more content for its streaming services, people familiar with the talks told Bloomberg on Thursday. It has allegedly spoken to several major players about the possibility of acquiring more movies from their libraries to add to the service.
There are no indications of how long the content could be made available on Apple TV+, but it may be a short-term offering. March's collection of licensed movies was taken down on June 30, marking about four months of availability.
Apple could indeed license for longer or go down a strategy of providing limited-run access to content and cycling them out periodically. For services like Netflix, which rely on a wide breadth of content to offer to subscribers, there is a regular cycle of licensed content joining and leaving the catalog.
For Apple, however, it's offering of primarily original or exclusive content, as well as its foray into sports, makes it hard to consider the service going for long-term content licensing, or doing so with large catalogs. The concern is that its own content could be lost in a sea of licensed films if it went down that route.
The story arrives just after Apple TV+ films and shows have been nominated 72 times for the 76th Emmy Awards.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
5 Comments
Inevitable price increase coming.
They can have higher priced tiers that include a movie bundle.
$9.99/month base package
$14.99/month, base + older movie package
$19.99/month, base + (tokens worth 5 iTunes movie rentals or 10 TV show rentals) + movie package of older movies
$29.99/month, base + (tokens worth 15 iTunes movie rentals or 30 TV shows) + movie package of older movies
Dune:Part 2 is available for standalone rent but while on the $19.99/month package, it would just use one of the rentals. The main thing is it shows up as ready to watch as soon as the app opens instead of seeing The Morning Show all the time.
Popular TV series like Friends and The Office would just show up as watchable like on other streaming services and they can wrap ownership into the model. Friends seasons can be bought for around $14.99/season of roughly 24 episodes per season ($0.62/episode). If someone watches an entire season and enough tokens are used to meet the purchase price, they just add it to the account permanently.
Well, a dependence on licensing was not the original intent of ATV+. So if it becomes more common that is a significant paradigm shift.
and as noted above, moves in this direction so far have been only applicable for the USA. The multitude of current licensing arrangements around the world is a complex mess. A movie might already be exclusive to a provider in some markets and not in others.
a key reason I do not have a One subscription is that I want to be able to easily drop ATV+ for a year or so and then come back in to binge for a couple of months, then drop out again. A broader, bigger selection makes that a bit less desirable.
not a fan of that tiered pricing for a limited number of titles idea Marvin. Like the audible subscription. All that would happen is that over time less and less becomes available in the base subscription. And this would be much worse outside the USA.
As a long time renter of films from the iTunes Movie Store, I always thought it would be cool if that was somehow bundled in with Apple TV+.