Apple TV+
Apple TV+ and Paramount+ each reportedly lost 7% of their subscribers in October, and are said to be in early talks to offer users a bundle of both services.
Paramount+ has previously made a similar deal with Showtime. With a bundle, users have an option to get two services for more than the cost of one, but less than the previous cost of the two.
According to the Wall Street Journal and subscriber-measurement firm Antenna, a bundle decreases the chance that a user will cancel a streamer. Reportedly, users of a single streamer may binge-watch a particular series and then cancel before the following month.
While not specifically stated, presumably users with a bundle are more likely to move to binge watching other shows, because there is a greater number and variety available to them.
Even Netflix, whose library is rivaled only by Disney+, has already become part of a bundle. Netflix is now available alongside Max — which was itself originally HBO Max and Discovery+ — in a deal with Verizon.
Antenna says that cancelling users of Apple TV+ and Paramount+, or the “churn rate,” was 7% in October 2023. That compares to an industry average of 5.7%.
While streamers themselves do not report their churn rate, Antenna claims that Disney has seen fewer cancellations since it has been offering Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN in a bundle.
Apple itself already bundles Apple TV+ in its Apple One service, where it is sold in a package together with Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and Apple News. Again according to Antenna, Apple One has an unspecified but far lower churn rate than Apple TV+ on its own.
Bundles may be useful to Apple because its Apple TV+ library of shows remains one of the smallest in the industry. A bundle would also be more attractive to subscribers, which may be particularly important after Apple — and practically all streamers — have been raising their prices.
