Peacock

If reports are to be believed, Apple TV has about 45 million subscribers. Peacock last quarter saw no growth and was stuck with just 41 million subscribers. Peacock in its Q2 lost $101 million, and Apple TV potentially loses as much as $1 billion a year.

These are two streamers that can use a boost, and now they’re helping each other.

Apple and NBCUniversal announced on Thursday a bundle between Apple TV and Peacock (no plusses to be found anywhere), beginning on October 20. For $14.99 a month, you can now get both Apple TV and Peacock Premium (the one with ads), which is a savings of over 30 percent on buying them both individually. Upgrading to the ad-free Peacock Premium Plus (OK, we lied) bundled with Apple TV (which still does not have any ads) costs $19.99 a month. Apple is also going a step further and allowing people who get Apple One, which combines all of Apple’s services, including TV, Arcade, Cloud, Fitness+, etc. to also get Peacock for a slightly better discount of about 35 percent.

This move is a little different than what Peacock did in partnership with Amazon Prime Video a couple of months ago. In that case, Peacock is just an add-on as part of Prime’s many channels, but this is an actual discount on the two services, and it ties everything up — ones you might have been inclined to cancel in between seasons of “The Traitors” and “Severance” — such that you keep both around for longer.

That’s doubly so if you and your family depend on the Apple Cloud and want to keep all the other things that come with it, including now Peacock. It also gives Apple an easy way to get closer to the NBA without actually having to pay for it, as NBA games will be back on Peacock and NBC later this month.

Though if you’re not ready to pull the trigger, in an unusual perk, Peacock users can watch the first three episodes each of some Apple TV shows, including “Stick,” “Slow Horses,” “Silo,” “The Buccaneers,” “Foundation,” “Palm Royale,” and “Prehistoric Planet,” and Apple TV users can watch the first three episodes of Peacock series including “Law & Order,” “Bel-Air,” “Twisted Metal,” “Love Island Games,” “Happy’s Place,” “The Hunting Party,” and “Real Housewives of Miami.”

Honestly, your head may be spinning from all the different bundles and trying to figure out the way to get the best price without also having to cancel and manage the subscriptions you already do have. But the reason any of this matters is that if these streamers don’t bundle, they’ll likely die. Not Apple TV and Peacock specifically, but any streamers, as we’re oversaturated to the point that not all of them will survive likely in the near future. NBCUniversal has already divvied up its cable channels as part of its spun-off company Versant, so all those cable channels that could’ve originally fueled Peacock’s growth are now elsewhere.

For Apple, its movies and TV business is a loss leader, and the same rules don’t apply as for other streamers. But all these expensive shows still need eyeballs, and it just got a potential 41 million people who might be interested in watching.