There are only vague hints about how Apple’s streaming video service is doing a week after the debut, but Variety got unnamed sources to say that Apple TV+ is getting millions of viewers.
These “sources close to Apple” also said an average person was spending over an hour on the service, which would seem to indicate they’re watching more than one episode, or multiple shows.
It’s not easy to tell how Apple TV+ is doing
Last Friday, Apple TV+ debuted three episodes of See, For All Mankind and The Morning Show. All 10 episodes of Dickinson were made available at the same time.
Data from Parrot Analytics shared with Variety indicated that See did fairly well on its launch date, but The Morning Show did not. Apple’s other two shows for adults came in between those two.
Professional critics are generally underwhelmed the four shows. The Morning Show has a 62% score from Rotten Tomatoes, while See is way down at 41%. But the audience scores are much, much higher: 95% and 83%, respectively.
Apparently listening to the viewers and not the critics, Apple already renewed all four of these shows for a second season.
The company is facing an uphill battle, and Apple TV+ was never likely to take off immediately. It faces tremendous competition from Netflix, Amazon Prime and others, and didn’t launch with any established franchise shows. Apple has the money to stay in the streaming wars for the long haul though, but only time will tell if it can find a big audience.
A free one-year subscription to Apple TV+ is available anyone who bought a new iPhone or iPad this fall. And for everyone else, there’s a one-week free trial.
