TV Time, a popular app for tracking the shows you’re watching and engaging in community discussions, is shutting down. The company announced through in-app messages that the TV Time app will be discontinued and will no longer offer service after July 15, 2026.

The company attributed the decision to the expense of running the platform, but the real culprit appears to be a shift toward a more AI-focused business.

“While we loved supporting TV Time, it was no longer sustainable to continue operating the service as a free app and there was not enough demand for a paid app,” the message said. “To everyone who followed, discovered and shared their love of TV and movies with us, thank you. Your passion and enthusiasm made TV Time more than an app. You made it a community.”

The closure of TV Time marks the end of one of the largest online TV fan communities and underlines how the growth of the artificial intelligence industry is changing companies’ priorities. As companies rush to create AI products, consumer apps are sometimes shut down, even if they have active user bases. Another example of this trend is the read-later app Pocket, which still had loyal users but closed when its owner Mozilla prioritized developing Firefox and AI-powered browsing experiences.

Owned by Whip Media, the TV Time app has more than 26.4 million lifetime installs, according to data from app intelligence provider Appfigures, and has seen nearly 29,000 new downloads in the past 30 days. (Whip Media itself often referred to TV Time’s more than 25 million users in its marketing materials.) Under Whip Media, TV Time data helped drive a business intelligence ecosystem for the media industry. That meant that the app alone didn’t have to be profitable as a consumer product, because the data it generated was the real value.

Things have changed at the company in recent months. Whip Media was acquired by direct lender Blue Torch Capital in early 2025, envisioning a more AI-focused future for the company.

Under its new owner, Whip Media shifted from providing sentiment analysis, ratings predictions, content optimization and other data that TV Time could provide to focusing on potentially more profitable avenues. This now includes its AI-powered automation and workflow management tool, Helix, which is used to improve streaming analytics and supply chain orchestration.

What’s not clear is why the company wouldn’t sell the still-popular app instead of discontinuing it. He probably wouldn’t have wanted to help another company generate the kind of data that could make it a more formidable competitor in the media and entertainment space. The app also showed a slowdown in download growth in the first half of this year, Appfigures data indicated.

Whip Media notes that data collected through TV Time will not be used as part of any commercial services once TV Time ends, and everyone’s personal data will be deleted.

The company says the app will be removed from app stores on July 15, but before that date, users can request a download of their data through a GDPR-compliant export tool.