Tim Cook talks about shows on Apple TV + during an event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California in 2019.
Photographer: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
Photographer: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
Apple Inc. plans to bundle access to CBS All Access and Showtime content at a discounted price for subscribers to their TV + video game, according to people familiar with the plans.
This is Apple’s first discount ban on video content with the TV + service. Currently, users have to subscribe to various content providers in the TV app on an a la carte basis.
As of Monday, Apple TV + subscribers are launching both CBS and Showtime channels in Apple’s TV app for $ 9.99 a month at a time. CBS All Access and Showtime normally cost $ 9.99 and $ 10.99 per month, respectively, so the deal would be a major saving.
ViacomCBS Inc., which owns both content providers, has in the past offered discounts on CBS All Access and Showtime bundles on its own website. ViacomCBS shares stood out on the news.
An Apple spokesman declined to comment.
The move is designed to stimulate interest in the latest video services from Cupertino, California. The discount bundle rate could encourage the use of Apple TV Channels, a service that allows customers to subscribe to third-party content through the company’s devices. The requirement for a TV + subscription also makes the $ 4.99 per month service more valuable and could potentially attract more subscribers.
While Apple TV + has some well-received content, including “The Morning Show” and Tom Hanks “Greyhound,” the service still lags behind Netflix Inc. and Amazon Prime Video in terms of content and subscribers. Without a large catalog of older movies and TV shows, Apple relies on the Channels service to create an even more limited array of original content.
Later this year, the company plans to launch a push in service bundles for all of its key offerings with an offering called “Apple One,” Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
(Updates with ViacomCBS share comment. An earlier version of this story corrected ViacomCBS ‘spelling)
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