Last week rumors started circulating around Cupertino that Apple is laying the groundwork to bundle its Music and new TV streaming services into one combined subscription. As a reminder, Apple is prepping to launch its new Apple TV+ service on November 1st with a $4.99/mo subscription offering. Currently Apple Music is available at $9.99/mo. The conventional wisdom is that Apple could offer both services together for something just above the current $9.99, making it an attractive upsell for users.
On the TV side, Amazon is the only other OTT to combine music streaming with video under its Prime subscription umbrella. But I think Apple has its eyes on a bigger prize than just keeping pace with Amazon. Adding Music to its TV+ package could give Apple an important differentiator as it tries to take on the current digital video king Netflix and the about-to-be-huge Disney+, which launches on November 12th.
On the audio side, bundling a video offer with Music allows Apple to match Amazon and turn up the pressure on the subscription-dependent Spotify. Apple Music already has the most audio streaming subs in the US (they surpassed Spotify last year), and adding TV content for a relatively small price increase could create some separation from the the other sub-based audio streamers.
Nothing is set in stone yet, but this one is definitely worth keeping an eye on.
