After land grabbing comes money grabbing. After pushing for rapid growth by luring users with low prices, lax enforcement of passwords, bingeable series dropped in one go, and a lack of ads, streaming services are gradually returning to type. And even Apple doesn’t seem to be immune to the lure of advertising dollars.
Business Insider reported this week that Apple has hired Joseph Cady, a senior television advertising executive at NBCUniversal. Cady’s role, the site reports, “was senior vice president of advanced advertising and partnerships, putting him in charge of targeted, data-driven television advertising.” He oversaw partnerships with Amazon, Google and TikTok, among others.
And it’s just the latest in a string of high-profile TV ad-related hires, with Business Insider citing five other big names joining Cupertino this year or in 2023. The hiring activity strongly suggests that Apple plans to put advertisements on its network. The TV+ streaming service (or at least is considering this as an option), because this is precisely the area of expertise that these new recruits bring. It wouldn’t make sense to hire six big-budget TV ad executives and then continue to release ad-free TV content only on its streaming service.
Either way, the direction of the market is in one direction. Here’s how other streaming giants have handled advertising:
- Max/HBO Max: Cheaper ad-supported tier launching in summer 2021.
- Netflix: Launching a cheaper “Basic with Ads” tier in November 2022.
- Disney+: A cheaper ad-supported tier launching in December 2022. (Some features were removed from the standard tier at the same time, encouraging customers to upgrade to Premium.)
- Amazon Prime Video: Introduced ads on its standard tier (which remained the same price) in January 2024 and charged extra if you didn’t want to see them.
In this context, it would be strange if Apple doesn’t at least think about putting ads on TV+. After all, as we’ve seen with all those smartphone companies removing headphone ports and leaving power adapters out of boxes after Apple did it, asking rivals to do something unpopular first is a great way to get PR coverage to do it yourself later. And it’s basically free money.
Where is it? In the past, we might have pointed out that Apple likes to think differently. It’s not really about content; each TV+ subscription generates revenue, of course, but also sells customers across the entire Apple hardware ecosystem. And when you’re selling a premium lifestyle, user experience is everything.
Unfortunately, those days seem to be behind us; a glance at the App Store search will tell you. Instead of making search as accurate and useful as possible, Apple sells ad placements to the highest bidder, even though they are completely unrelated. User experience is no longer king at Apple Park.
So you should probably prepare for ads on TV+. Based on the behavior of competing companies, the most likely approach is to offer this tier as a new tier that is less costly than any existing tier. Only Amazon was brazen enough to add ads to one level while keeping the price the same, then charge extra on top of that, with no ads. But regardless of how Apple handles it, it’s a depressing indication of how streaming has gone from an exciting market disruptor to a cynical cash cow. And no Jon Hamm can do us any good about that.
