MTV And That Deloitte Study, The Meaning Of AppleTV+
1. MTV And That Deloitte Study
In August 2014, so almost 11 years ago, Variety published a study where they asked teens aged 13-17 how various YouTube stars and Hollywood celebrities “stacked up in terms of approachability, authenticity and other criteria considered aspects of their overall influence.”
The results were so shocking that Variety asked the researchers to redo the study. But the results were the same: the YouTube influencers ranked higher than celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence, Katy Perry, Seth Rogen, Betty White and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Who were these massively popular YouTube influencers? Smosh, The Fine Bros, PewDiePie, KSI, Ryan Higa, Shane Dawson, Jenna Marbles, Michelle Phan, Ray William Johnson and Bethany Mota.
And if your reaction to that list ranges from “who?” to “what ever happened to?” then I’ve got a Deloitte study to tell you about.
Why It Matters
There has been much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments around the latest findings in Deloitte’s digital media trends study that showed:
56% of Zoomers and 43% of Millennials found social media content “more relevant than traditional TV shows and movies.”
52% of Zoomers and 45% of Millennials report they “feel a stronger personal connection to social media creators than to TV personalities or actors.”
This has been taken as proof positive that Rome is indeed dead, that the Visigoths have sacked the city yet again, and it’s just a matter of time before we’ve given up The White Lotus for a series of “We’re North Carolinians! We have sex with our brothers!” videos.
And to that I have a three-letter response: MTV.
Young people have always had their own preferred media. Something that spoke to their not-yet-fully-formed personalities, their hopes and fears, their desire to distinguish themselves from their parents.
In my day it was MTV.
Had you done a study back in 1984, I have no doubt that Xers would have reported feeling a stronger personal connection to Martha Quinn, Adam Curry and Downtown Julie Brown than to any bevy of Hollywood stars.
Or that I, along with a majority of my peers, would have told you that MTV and VH1 were far more relevant to us than any TV shows and movies.
The industry was more than a bit freaked out by MTV too: were channels that played nothing but music videos destined to become the future of TV?
And then Viacom launched about a dozen versions of MTV and VH1 worldwide (MTV University anyone?) And MTV started putting out actual shows too, everything from The Real World to Jersey Shore. Which was when the real freakout began: was an entire generation lost to Hollywood, nestled firmly in Viacom’s seemingly limitless bosom?
But then time marched on and Xers grew up and became Trump voters. Millennials decided that Vloggers were more interesting than VJs. And streaming services like Vevo took over the music video business from MTV.
So it’s sort of baffling to me that anyone thinks that Zoomers won’t soon consign the current crop of TikTok stars to the dustbins of memory and what-ever-happened-to Google searches.
Which is not to say that creators and the creator economy are a fleeting fad.
Much as YouTube circa 2014 bears only a passing resemblance to TikTok circa 2025, digital media will continue to evolve and will be the place where each new generation finds its voice.
Which does not make Hollywood and long-form entertainment any less relevant or compelling. We have, since the days our ancestors gathered outside their caves, marveling at this new thing called fire, delighted in long-form content.
Which is why it is not going away anytime soon.
What You Need To Do About It
If you are Hollywood, you need to try and find some of these digital stars and see if you can co-opt them, turn them into something bigger with broader appeal.
Often you can’t. There aren’t a whole lot of Justin Timberlakes out there.
But there are Ryan Goslings and Selena Gomezes. Actors who were popular enough in KidWorld but who managed to find a place for themselves in the greater adult firmament.
But before you do that, you need to stop freaking out about the Deloitte study and trust in the fact that young people will eventually find their way back to you. And that the way to ensure they do is to focus on creating the sorts of stories that people get excited about, stories that they can relate to, stories that they keep coming back to even decades after they were made.
You know, the stuff you’re actually good at.
2. The Meaning Of Apple TV+
While TV was busy losing younger viewers, Apple TV+ was busy losing money. Lots of money too, according to The Information, whose scoop we are relying on, which claimed the amount in question is one billion dollars.
That is a whole lot of money to spend on what many have termed a “hobby business.” And at first glance it seems that Apple is, at best, ambivalent about TV.
They have, for example, done nothing to try and sell more of their Apple TV devices, those $130 hockey pucks that compete with $15 FireTV sticks and $29 Roku sticks. At a time when most people are just using their smart TV’s built-in OS.
Which is sort of mind-boggling given how important the TV OS has become. Especially given that Apple could have been a major player had they considered lowering the price point or even rolling out an Apple-powered TV.
Apple TV+ is also a head-scratcher.
It has a goodly number of buzzed-about shows: Ted Lasso, Severance, Shrinking, Slow Horses, The Morning Show, just to name a few.
But it has no library to speak of.
And while the price is low enough—$10/month—there’s a strong suspicion that many of its 45 million subscribers are not paying full price, getting it free from deals with providers like T-Mobile or because they’ve just bought an Apple product.
But it may not matter to Apple. Because if I had to guess, at some level they don’t see Apple TV+ as a for-profit streaming service, but rather, as a marketing expense.
Why It Matters
Don’t get me wrong—a billion dollars is a lot to spend on marketing, even for Apple. And while they don’t release any specific numbers for what they spend on advertising, I’ve seen estimates ranging from just under $1B to $4B.
But keeping the eponymous app—and thus the brand—in people’s heads for most of the year, may be well worth it.
Factor in too that they’re playing around with live sports, that the MLB and MLS games on Apple have ads in them, and that those ads supply data for Apple’s estimated $4B ad business. So it may not be such a bad deal after all.
Apple’s current profile, as HBO’s rival for the home of “prestige TV,” is more than a bit ironic given that they were derided in the early days as being “expensive NBC” (memorable anonymous slams FTW again) at a time when streaming was a lot more “indie” than it is today, catering, as it were, to “the Silver Lake crowd” (another anon slam.)
As for the library (or lack thereof) there has been much speculation over the years that Apple was about to buy one movie company or another, but that’s proved to be nothing more than speculation, with the assumption being that none of the movie catalogs were found to be “Apple-worthy.”
Which brings us back to marketing.
Is it worth a billion dollars a year to keep their name front and center among the sort of people who watch streaming TV? Maybe.
Will they be able to recoup some of that with ads on their sports properties? Again, maybe. If I’m the NFL, a service with just 45 million subs may not prove all that exciting. But the PGA or USTA? Apple’s upscale audience may be just the ticket.
What You Need To Do About It
If you’re Apple, I’d focus on the device rather than the app. The international market is wide open and a competitively priced Apple TV stick or even Apple-powered TV that integrates nicely with iPhones should do very well while also giving you a place at the table in the battle over the TV OS.
As for the app, whatever you are doing seems to be working. You’ve got a steady supply of buzzed-about hits, a new season of Ted Lasso on the way and a ten dollar price tag.
All of which may be enough to keep people subscribing. Even if you don’t have much of a library.
