Are ads coming to Apple TV? Top Apple executive puts an end to all rumours

With most streaming companies going for an ad-supported tier, there has been a lot of speculation on whether Apple would employ a similar stance for its Apple TV service. However, the company’s Services chief, Eddy Cue, in a recent interview put an end to the rumours as he categorically stated that there are no plans to bring ads to the platform at the moment.

Cue, however, left room for the company to go back on this stance in the future, as he said in an interview with Screen International: “Nothing at this time. Again, I don’t want to say no forever, but there are no plans. If we can stay aggressive with our pricing, it’s better for consumers not to get interrupted with ads.”

Just like Apple, Netflix had also maintained a long-time stance against including ads on the platform, but the streaming giant decided to reverse course in 2022 when faced with declining subscriber growth and increased competition in the streaming market.

Meanwhile, Amazon made ads the default experience for its subscribers last year, while users had to pay an additional fee to opt out of the ad-supported tier. Disney and Hulu have also begun offering an ad-supported tier in the last few years.

As for Apple, the company raised the prices of its Apple TV subscription from $9.99 to $12.99 in August. The service is currently the only major streamer in the market without a dedicated ad-supported tier.

Will Apple acquire any streaming platform?

Cue was also asked if Apple would acquire any other streaming platform like Disney, A24 or Warner Bros. The senior executive answered in the negative, stating that the company generally only makes small acquisitions.

“Same answer as before, but you’ve got to look at Apple from a historical point of view. We don’t do a lot of major acquisitions. We do very small acquisitions in general, not related to Apple TV, so I don’t see that happening because we like what we’re doing. We’re building and we’ll continue building from that,” Cue said in the interview.

Cue also did not give a definitive number on the subscriber base for Apple TV. The senior Apple executive had confirmed in a podcast earlier this year that the subscriber base of the platform was “significantly more than” 45 million subscribers.