Former Netflix CEO: Apple Not in Streaming Market ‘With Both Feet’

Netflix co-founder and former CEO Marc Randolph recently spoke to Yahoo Finance, where he commented on Disney+ and Apple TV+, two Netflix competitors in the streaming market.

Randolph criticized Apple’s free ‌Apple TV+‌ offerings and the number of subscribers that are still not paying. Apple has been offering free year-long ‌Apple TV+‌ subscriptions to those who purchase a new Apple device, and has already twice extended the free subscriptions of those who initially signed up in 2019.

“If Apple spent one quarter as much time on content as they do on giveaways they really could play,” Randolph said. “They have no excuse [and] they’re still not in it with both feet. They really have to do the entrepreneurial thing and walk up to the edge of the cliff and jump.”

He went on to explain that ‌Apple TV+‌ has the “highest churn rate” out of all the available streaming services. “You can’t keep replacing people,” he said. “You’ve got to give them a reason to stay.”

On Disney+, Randolph said that the streaming service has “fought its way up to a really strong position” with its continuous slate of new content. “It’s really a war of who’s prepared to make the content,” he said. Disney+ just today announced that it has hit 95 million subscribers and could hit Netflix-like numbers in just a few years. Netflix currently has more than 200 million subscribers.

Netflix last month said that it plans to release a new original film every week in 2021, and of the streaming services, it has one of the largest content catalogs available. Disney+ was also able to launch with a huge amount of content, and Disney has regularly been introducing new Star Wars and Marvel shows, among other titles.

Apple built ‌Apple TV+‌ from the ground up and has been adding new content regularly, but the streaming service lags far behind its competitors. Apple has never announced subscriber numbers, but said at the beginning of February that it had seen record viewership with the launch of Justin Timberlake movie “Palmer.”