One of the single best things about Apple TV Plus is that it's ad-free – but that may soon change. A new rumor, which looks more like an informed prediction following earlier news in March that it was recruiting ad execs to likely help form an ad-based tier like Netflix, Disney and Amazon, suggests that ads are coming to the service, and to its UK version in particular.
According to the UK's Telegraph newspaper, Apple has been in talks with the UK Broadcaster's Audience Research Board, or BARB for short. BARB is the organisation that provides viewing statistics for the UK's main TV networks, including Apple TV Plus, and the report says that Apple's latest meeting was to discuss the data collection required to monitor advertising results.
Apple has already had similar meetings with US organisations. In 2022, Digiday reported that Apple had been meeting multiple ad executives in the US and that those meetings were to discuss Apple TV Plus ads.
Apple ads are coming, but they might not be so bad
While the 2022 meetings haven't yet resulted in an ad-supported Apple TV Plus tier, it does appear to be coming. The meetings aren't to discuss whether Apple will be running ads, but to discuss the logistical issues of running ads. But there may be some good news: in the 2022 Digiday story, one unnamed media source said that Apple didn't want to upset its customers.
According to the source, if Apple did introduce ads it would be "a very 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 fit lots of ads". In other words, for Apple, the ads are just the icing on the cake so it's unlikely that you'd see as many ads as on rival streamers like Netflix, which defied critics as sign ups jumped eight million in two months, let alone traditional TV.
While Apple doesn't currently run ads on Apple TV Plus, that doesn't mean it's against advertising: Steve Jobs introduced an ad platform called iAds nearly 15-years ago, and Apple recently signed a deal with Taboola for more ads in its News App as well as recruited an advertising executive from NBCUniversal to expand its video advertising 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 on Prime Video, which is forcing even more ads on subscribers.
It'll be a shame if Apple TV Plus becomes yet another place for people to sell us stuff, but it's probably inevitable. It's one of the few streamers not to run any advertising, or have its own free ad-supported TV offering (even Netflix could be planning a completely free service with ads), and with streaming prices heading ever upwards it could be the lesser of two evils if it prevents Apple hiking its prices further. I just hope that ads aren't coming to the Apple TV interface too.
