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When it comes to the biggest names in streaming, it’s getting harder and harder to leave out Apple, especially after Apple TV+’s banner second quarter.
Between April and June, Apple TV+ made more appearances on Whip Media’s weekly SVOD TV ranker, which looks at the 10 most-streamed shows in the U.S. each week, than any other service.
Apple TV+ cracked Whip Media’s TV ranker 31 times during the second quarter, which was an 82% increase from its 17 appearances in Q1. Those 31 appearances also put Apple TV+ ahead of Netflix (26 appearances) and Max (18 appearances), as well as first-quarter streaming king Paramount+, which made Whip Media’s TV ranker 16 times during the second quarter.
There were five shows responsible for Apple’s big quarter: “Ted Lasso,” “Silo,” “Schmigadoon!,” “Platonic” and “The Last Thing He Told Me.” The service’s 31 total appearances in Whip Media’s Top 10 were split among those shows.
“Ted Lasso,” Apple’s first streaming hit starring Jason Sudeikis as a fish-out-of-water American football coach who now leads an English soccer club, led the charge for much of the quarter, including a seven-week stretch between late April and early June when it landed in the three most-streamed shows in the States each week.
“Silo” also helped Apple TV+ close the quarter strong, as it routinely landed among the weekly top three shows in June. The dystopian series, starring Rebecca Ferguson, Rashida Jones and Tim Robbins, follows the last 10,000 people on earth after they’ve been forced to live in an underground silo a mile beneath the earth’s surface. The show’s strong first season led Apple to renew the series last month.
It wasn’t just shows, either. Apple TV+ had a competitive second quarter on the movie side as well, with nine appearances on Whip Media’s weekly movie ranker during the quarter. That included “Ghosted,” the action rom-com starring Chris Evans and Ana de Armas, becoming the first Apple TV+ flick to top Whip Media’s movie ranker back in April.
Other big performers included “Tetris” and “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,” the Apple TV+ documentary that looks at the iconic actor’s battle with Parkinson’s disease. At one point in mid-May, “Still” came in as the sixth most-streamed movie of the week, giving it bragging rights as the best-performing documentary on Whip Media’s ranker this year.
Overall, Netflix lapped the pack with 41 appearances on Whip Media’s movie ranker in the second quarter, and Disney+ grabbed the silver medal with 30 appearances. Apple TV+ also fell behind Peacock (16 appearances), Max (15) and Paramount+ (12) during the quarter, but did finish slightly ahead of Amazon Prime Video, which had 8 appearances on Whip Media’s movie ranker during the quarter. Apple TV+ also scored more top 10 appearances than Hulu (4) and Showtime (1) from April to June.
Apple, thanks to its massive $55 billion cash pile, has had the resources necessary to crash the streaming party. Its $6.99 monthly price for Apple TV+ and marketing to new iPhone and Mac buyers don’t hurt, either. Still, its second-quarter performance is noteworthy, especially for a service that is looked at mostly as an afterthought for a company worth $3 trillion.
Moving forward, it’ll be interesting to see what Apple CEO Tim Cook has to say about the service, if anything at all — when the company reports earnings on Aug. 3. Typically, Apple is fairly quiet about the service’s performance, lumping it in with other subscription products when it reports numbers. It’s estimated the service has anywhere between 25 million and 50 million subscribers. If ever there was a time to share a subscriber figure, though, you’d think it would be right now, with Apple TV+ seeming to be gaining some real traction in the States.
Sean Burch is a marketing insights analyst at Whip Media, a WrapPRO partner. Click here for more from Whip Media.
