Apple is instituting significant price increases starting today for streaming service Apple TV+ along with Apple Music and the Apple One bundle, citing higher licensing and content costs.
The monthly price of Apple TV+ will go to $6.99 from $4.99, while the yearly plan is rising to $69.99 from $49.99. Both are 40% spikes, though it is the first time the streaming service has gone up since its launch in November 2019.
Apple Music is rising a dollar for individuals, to $10.99 per month, with the family plan jumping two dollars to $16.99 per month. Apple One, which bundles video and music streaming with cloud services, video games and other options is going to $16.95 a month from $14.95 for individuals. Families will pay three dollars more, at $22.95 a month.
“The change to Apple Music is due to an increase in licensing costs, and in turn, artists and songwriters will earn more for the streaming of their music,” an Apple rep explained in a statement to Deadline. “We also continue to add innovative features that make Apple Music the world’s best listening experience.”
As to Apple TV+, the statement said, it launched “at a very low price because we started with just a few shows and movies. Three years later, Apple TV+ is home to an extensive selection of award-winning and broadly acclaimed series, feature films, documentaries, and kids and family entertainment from the world’s most creative storytellers.”
The economics of streaming video are managed differently at tech giants like Apple compared with entertainment companies like Disney, NBCUniversal and Warner Bros Discovery or even a pure-play outfit like Netflix. Because Apple is mainly interested in continuing to push its devices as well as its overall services, the return on its investment in pricey film and TV projects is less of a focus than it is at other companies.
Consistent with that business reality, the company has never disclosed subscriber numbers or viewership metrics for Apple TV+. Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst with Bernstein Research, has estimated that there are between 20 million and 40 million Apple TV+ subscribers, generating between $1 billion and $2 billion in revenue. Unlike every other top-tier streamer, Apple thus far has resisted adding an advertising tier for Apple TV+, though it has shown an increased appetite for live sports, signing rights deals with Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer and pursuing the NFL’s Sunday Ticket package. Sports, as Prime Video, ESPN+, Peacock and others have shown, is a potent advertiser draw in subscription streaming.