Three-Year Product Roadmap for Apple's Subscription Video Streaming Service

You own product for Apple TV, Apple's video streaming service, and leadership asks what your roadmap for the next three years would be. Present the roadmap: the outcome it drives toward, which viewers it serves first, the major themes or bets in the order you would take them, what you would deliberately not do, and how you would know at the end of each year that it is working. ```hint Diagnose before you sequence Before listing initiatives, decide what holds the service back against larger streaming rivals and what Apple can do that they cannot. Order the three years so that early work makes the later bets pay off, and name the evidence that would unlock each next stage. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Does "Apple TV" here mean the paid subscription service built around Apple's originals, the TV app that also sells rentals and connects other providers' channels, or the set-top box as well? - Is the main objective subscriber growth, engagement and retention of current subscribers, or profitability of the content spend? - Do I control content decisions such as what to license and when to release it, or is the roadmap limited to the product and its distribution? - Should the roadmap cover every country where the service is sold, or a set of priority markets? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A diagnosis of where the service stands against larger streaming rivals, leading to one explicit objective and a north-star metric - Viewer segments (lightly engaged Apple device owners, fans who leave between seasons, homes without Apple devices, international and sports audiences) prioritized with reasons - Themes sequenced across the three years with dependencies, gates between stages, and explicit non-goals - Metrics for each stage plus guardrails on content cost per viewing hour, churn and brand quality - Apple-specific trade-offs, such as an ad-supported tier against the privacy brand, or parity on rival devices against selling Apple hardware ### Follow-up Questions - Leadership asks you to launch a cheaper ad-supported tier next year. Would you, and what evidence would you need first? - Many new subscribers arrive through free trials that come with a device purchase and cancel when the trial ends. How does your roadmap change? - If the content budget were cut sharply, which parts of the roadmap would you keep? - Leadership narrows the horizon to the next twelve months only. How would you order the initiatives quarter by quarter, and how would you judge at the end of that year whether the roadmap worked?