Investor’s Business Daily:

Less than 10% of Apple customers eligible for 12-month free trials of the company’s Apple TV+ streaming video service have taken the offer, a Wall Street analyst said Monday.

Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi estimates that under 10 million Apple customers have accepted the free trial offer. He calls that a “surprisingly low take rate.”

So much of the media is unquestioningly accepting Sacconaghi’s numbers without asking how he came about them or being critical of the report in general.

Sacconaghi based his estimate on an analysis of Apple’s fiscal first-quarter results, released last week. Apple did not give specifics on the Apple TV+ service, which launched on Nov. 1. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said Apple TV+ “is off to a rousing start.”

Sacconaghi sees three possible explanations for a low initial take rate for Apple TV+ free trials.

Here’s a fourth possibility – Sacconaghi is talking out of his posterior and has no actual data to base this on. The Mac and Tech media should at least entertain that idea instead of going off half-cocked and making pronouncements like “consumers might not be interested in Apple TV+ because of its limited content offerings.” While that may be true, everyone likes “free.”