Apple TV+ Is America’s Worst Streaming Service

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jun 9, 7:30AM EDT

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Apple TV+ Is America’s Worst Streaming Service — © JGalione / E+ via Getty Images

Video streaming services have become so prevalent that nearly every home in America subscribes to at least one. According to recent research by Kantar, 85% of homes subscribe to at least one service. The average household subscribes to 4.7 services.
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There are over a dozen major streaming services, which means some will fade and may even go out of business. Even industry leader Netflix said it was having trouble adding subscribers. It has a huge budget to produce its own content, which makes the problem a large financial burden for the company. Amazon, one of the world’s most successful companies, has a service of its own. Amazon Prime Video is the only streaming service that currently rivals Netflix in size. Another giant, Walt Disney, has launched its own Disney+, which has been a wild success.
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Several other major media firms have launched their own services, which are usually built around the legacy content they have released in theaters. This includes HBO Max.

Some of the services are far behind in subscriber count and may never catch up. High on this list are Paramount+ and Starz.

The American Customer Satisfaction conducts studies of consumer preference across hundreds of categories. Recently, it released its American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) Telecommunications Study 2021-2022 research report. The scope of this report is wide. It coverers internet service providers, phone landline providers, Wi-Fi providers and subscription TV. The final part of the study covers streaming services.
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The streaming portion of the study covers 21 services. It focuses on the number of movies and TV shows, customer service, ease of understanding bills and stream quality.

The list was topped by Microsoft Store. People can use the service to purchase shows. On a scale of 1 to 100, it received a rating of 79. Disney+ did the best of the large services with a rating of 78. Netflix scored in the middle of the pack with a rating of 74, the same as giant Amazon Prime Video.
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Apple+ ranked last with a score of 69, which tied with small service Crackle. Apple has invested huge sums in original programming and marketing. However, it is very late to market compared to other large competition. The authors write: “Starz sits near the bottom of the industry after stumbling 5% to 70. Apple TV+ (down 4%) and Crackle (up 1%) tie for last with scores of 69.”

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.