What happens when content is missing from Apple TV Channels?

Something to think about if you’re planning to subscribe to a third-party channel via Apple TV.

I do all of my TV watching via my Apple TV, and I try to do as much of it as possible through the TV app because the experience is just so much better than what most third-party streaming apps offer. With the exception of Netflix (who doesn’t participate in the TV app), if you have a subscription to a third-party streaming app like Disney+, the Apple TV app will connect to that app so that when new episodes of your shows are available, they’ll be added to your Up Next queue in the TV app automatically. When you click on an episode to play it, you then get sent over to the Disney+ app through which the episode is streamed. This means that if you subscribe to multiple streaming services, all of your shows and movies from those various apps will be available in a single queue within the Apple TV app. It’s amazing!

Additionally, Apple also gives you the ability to subscribe to third-party services directly within the Apple TV app through what it calls Apple TV Channels. This is useful in several ways. First, you get to bundle it into your existing Apple ID payment system which keeps it consistent and saves you having to create a separate account and add payment to every new service you sign up for. Secondly, you never get sent out of the Apple TV app into a third-party app which probably has a worse user experience. Everything stays right in the TV app from beginning to end. Third, Apple takes it a step further and actually hosts the shows and movies on their own content delivery network. This is great because Apple has one of the best CDNs in the business, if not the best, so the picture quality is often noticeably better than what you get in a third-party app. The downside to Apple TV Channels is that not every streaming service is available, and the biggest ones like Disney+ are totally absent.

Earlier this year I went to the Paramount+ app to re-enable my subscription so that I could watch the new seasons of Star Trek. At the time the Paramount+ app was super flaky. I’d go to start a show and I’d hear the audio, but the picture was still stuck on the menu. So I wound up canceling my Paramount+ subscription and re-subscribed to the service through the Apple TV Channels version of Paramount+. Everything about that experience has been significantly better, but this week I did run into a frustrating issue: a movie that I knew was on Paramount+ wasn’t available on the Apple TV Channels version of the app. Uh-oh.

For months I had been eagerly anticipating the release of the 4K HDR version of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Director’s Edition. The Director’s Edition, which is about twenty years old, had never been released in HD, let alone 4K. And this wasn’t a simple format transfer. They extensively (and expensively) gave the film a complete remaster and even added in new special effects. By all accounts it’s one of the best 4K HDR updates to a classic film.

So on Tuesday (release day), my wife and I sat down to watch the film and… it simply wasn’t on the Apple TV Channels version of Paramount+. As of this writing it’s still not available there. Whether intentionally or due to oversight (and I’m guessing it’s the latter), Paramount hasn’t gotten the file to Apple. I spent a couple of days trying to get online help from Paramount+. They seem to be understaffed because it took a full day between each response, and it was also a challenge to get them to understand that I’m using the Apple TV Channels version of Paramount+, not their own app. I finally had a breakthrough after I directly tweeted the CEO of Paramount about this issue. Then someone from their support staff reached out on Twitter and found a workable middle ground: There’s a relatively secret process by which you can actually login with a Paramount+ account and add your Apple TV Channels subscription so that you can use the Paramount+ app in addition to the Apple TV app. This isn’t a perfect solution because I’m still not going to be able to take advantage of Apple’s superior content delivery network to watch the film, but it’s certainly better than nothing. It’s a process that would be a struggle for less technical users.

Going forward I’m going to be eagerly checking the Apple TV app to see if the film eventually gets added there. In the meantime, if you do plan on subscribing to a streaming service via Apple TV Channels, just know that something like could happen.

UPDATE: Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Director’s Edition is on the Apple TV Channels version of Paramount+ after all! Neither of the two different Paramount+ support staff knew how to show me where to find it, but the internet is undefeated and a helpful person reached out to me on Twitter last night to point me in the right direction. What you have to do is search for Star Trek: The Motion Picture in the Apple TV app. You’ll only get one result. When you click or tap on it, you need to scroll down past the artwork and play button and find the Paramount+ icon, under which it says “2 Versions.” If you click on that you get a screen with two options which, frustratingly, both have the same artwork and are both labeled, “Star Trek I: The Motion Picture.” Toss a coin and hope you get the right one. You’ll know you did if you see stars while the overture plays. But don’t leave the movie planning to come back and finish it later! If you resume the movie from the Up Next queue it does take you back to the same point in the movie, but it takes you back to the HD, theatrical release version. I’m reminded of this exchange from The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy:

“But the plans were on display…”

“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”

“That’s the display department.”

“With a flashlight.”

“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”

“So had the stairs.”

“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’”

At the end of the day this isn’t a huge deal. This is a really unusual edge case where we’re talking about an alternative version of a film that already exists in the iTunes catalog. But over on Paramount+ each version is properly titled with separate artwork. Is this Apple’s fault, or Paramount’s? Probably both. Apple was probably confused about how to handle a film release that’s likely unlike any other they’ve had to handle in the Apple TV Channels era. Ultimately Paramount should take a bit more care to make their product more accessible to Apple TV Channels customers, but I also understand that their main priority is to optimize for their own apps. At the end of the day, I’m just glad it’s available for me and other Star Trek fans to enjoy.