r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 16d ago

News Apple Losing Over $1 Billion a Year on Streaming Service

https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-losing-over-1-billion-year-streaming-service-information-reports-2025-03-20/
11.4k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

81

u/ksj 16d ago

They did, but they still have to pay royalties to the creators. The producers and directors and main actors all get residuals when people watch the show. If nobody can watch the show, they don’t have to pay those residuals.

10

u/gambalore 16d ago

Streaming residuals under the old union contracts (before the most recent strikes) were structured in a way where the payouts were based on the size of the streaming service, not on the actual viewership. That had the unfortunate effect of incentivizing the streamers to take low-viewership shows off of their platforms, even if the residual payouts were pretty paltry. WB also pivoted to licensing some of the less popular series out to other services, like Tubi, to raise more money.

2

u/[deleted] 16d ago

[removed] — view removed comment