Rumor has it that Apple TV Plus is planning a major update that will make it cheaper, but you’ll have to put up with ads
One of the best things about Apple TV Plus is that it’s ad-free, but that could soon change. A new rumor, which seems more like an informed prediction following earlier news in March that it was hiring ad executives to presumably help form an ad-based tier along the lines of Netflix, Disney and Amazon, suggests that ads are coming to the service, and the UK version in particular.
According to the United Kingdom Telegraph newspaper, Apple is in talks with the UK Broadcaster’s Audience Research Board, or BARB for short. BARB is the organisation that provides audience figures for the UK’s major TV networks, including Apple TV Plus, and the report says that Apple’s last meeting was to discuss the data collection needed to monitor advertising performance.
Apple has already had similar meetings with US organizations. In 2022, Digital day reported that Apple had met with a number of advertising executives in the US and that during those meetings the ads for Apple TV Plus would be discussed.
Apple ads are coming, but they might not be that bad
While the 2022 meetings didn’t result in an ad-supported Apple TV Plus tier, it seems likely that one is coming. The meetings aren’t meant to discuss whether Apple will run ads, but rather the logistical issues of running ads. But there may be some good news: in the 2022 Digiday story, an anonymous media source said that Apple didn’t want to offend its customers.
According to the source, if Apple were to introduce ads, it would be “a really good ad experience with probably a low ad load” because Apple “is actually very diversified in terms of revenue streams, so there’s less pressure to run a lot of ads.” In other words, for Apple, the ads are just icing on the cake, so it’s unlikely you’d see as many ads as you would on rival streamers like Netflix, which defied critics after seeing eight million signups in two months, let alone traditional TV.
While Apple doesn’t currently run ads on Apple TV Plus, that doesn’t mean it’s anti-advertising: Steve Jobs launched an ad platform called iAds nearly 15 years ago, and Apple recently signed a deal with Taboola for more ads in its News app and recruited an advertising executive from NBCUniversal to expand its video ad team. There are also ads in the App Store, and Apple TV Plus viewers are already familiar with ads for Apple’s own shows – unlike Prime Video, which forces even more ads on subscribers.
It would be a shame if Apple TV Plus turned into yet another place where people sell us stuff, but it’s probably inevitable. It’s one of the few streamers that doesn’t run ads, or has its own free ad-supported TV offering (even Netflix could plan a completely free service with ads), and with streaming prices continuing to rise, it could be the lesser of two evils if it prevents Apple from raising its prices further. I just hope we don’t bring ads to the Apple TV interface.
