“Apple Inc. customers waiting for the company to revolutionize live television as it did for music and phone service will have to keep waiting, at least until next year,” Peter Burrows, Lucas Shaw, and Gerry Smith report for Bloomberg.
“The company wanted to introduce this year a live TV service delivered via the Internet, but is now aiming for 2016, said people familiar with Apple’s plans. Talks to license programming from TV networks such as those owned by CBS Corp. and 21st Century Fox Inc. are progressing slowly, some of the people said,” Burrows, Shaw, and Smith report. “Apple also doesn’t have the computer network capacity in place to ensure a good viewing experience, said some of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.”
“Without enough content deals in place, Apple has scrapped plans to announce the service at a Sept. 9 event in San Francisco, which would have coincided with the beginning of the new network TV season, the people said,” Burrows, Shaw, and Smith report. “The Cupertino, California-based company still plans to introduce a more powerful version of its Apple TV set-top box at the event, said the people, but customers — for now, at least — will need a cable or satellite TV subscription or an antenna to watch live network television.”
“The main stumbling block is the price of content. Just as Apple once convinced music labels to sell songs for a lowly 99 cents, it wants to offer a package of popular channels for $40 a month, the people said. That’s roughly half of the average cable bill in the U.S.,” Burrows, Shaw, and Smith report. “Talks with CBS, Fox and NBC, owned by Comcast Corp., have been mired for the past several months, said the people.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Eddy Cue without Steve Jobs is a painful thing to witness.
If Steve were still here, who wants to bet this would be all buttoned up by now?
What good is having $200+ billion if you don’t know how to leverage it in order to get the ink you need?
If this report is true, yet another holiday shopping season will be missed.
The “hobby” continues.
SEE ALSO:
Are 11 million Apple Music subscribers – during a free trial in over 100 countries – worth bragging about? – August 10, 2015
Why are Apple’s cloud services so weak? – August 4, 2015
Apple fails yet again in the cloud: How to use Apple Music without iCloud Music Library – July 23, 2015
Apple Music, Beats 1, App Store service restored after four-hour outage for some users – July 21, 2015
Why Apple’s iMessage is unreliable: Apple is juggling too many balls in the cloud – June 23, 2015
Apple’s iTunes and App stores’ costly 12-hour outage – March 12, 2015
Apple’s iTunes, app stores, iCloud services experience outages worldwide – March 11, 2015
iCloud is a major weakness: Will Apple ever fix it? – January 25, 2015
iCloud accounts at risk after hacker releases tool allowing access to any login – January 2, 2015
Apple’s online stores hit with 2nd outage this week – September 4, 2014
Apple’s Eddy Cue: ‘The TV experience sucks’ – May 29, 2014
Overnight outage of Apple’s iCloud, online store lasted hours – October 9, 2013
Apple’s Eddy Cue ‘very pleased’ with iTunes Radio, looks to go international ASAP; more than 100 countries targeted – October 4, 2013
Service outages affect Apple’s App Store, iTunes, and FaceTime for hours – August 7, 2013
Apple’s iCloud services again hit by worldwide outage – April 23, 2013
Apple confirms multiple service outages; App Store, iTunes and Calendar still down for some – February 21, 2013
Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime suffer another significant outage Sunday – November 19, 2012
Apple’s iTunes Match down as Apple’s iCloud problems continue – November 19, 2012
Apple’s Eddy Cue joins Ferrari board of directors – November 7, 2012
Eddy Cue strikes again.
Hey, Eddy, how are those Apple TV content deals coming? How many decades are you going to take?
100+ countries and you could only get a measly 11 million Apple Music users to sign up for a free – repeat FREE – trial? Brilliant work! Here, have another million Apple RSUs!
Apple shareholders should be asking: What exactly does Eddy Cue do that’s supposedly worth millions of dollars to Apple Inc.? Fsck up with consistency while looking stupid? Has Eddy ever done anything positive without Steve Jobs around to hold his hand and make sure it actually gets done and gets done right?
Time for an example to be made, Tim: Fire Eddy Cue.
He won’t be missed.
You just don’t understand how difficult it is. Sure, the stock price will be affected by this because the new iPhones aren’t going to raise the stock price very high for very long. If the new iPhones even help at all? But it’s all about forward guidance. And without something new like streaming TV service, the stock is going to be in the toilet. Sorry about that.
It’s CBS or Fox.
CBS market cap: $24.14 billion
FOX market cap: $60.98 billion
Steve would have put the fear of Jobs into whatever jackass is gumming up the works. Eddy’s too stupid and Cook is too timid to get this done.
And, by the way, fscking Dish Network (Dish Network!!!) can get this done, but “Apple” (read Eddy Cue) can’t. Unbelievable, unforgivable incompetence.
No one is afraid of contracting with Dish Network, no one.
You make a good point. But this is the big leagues. And when you make millions of dollars a year you are expected to perform. No excuses. Especially when you work for a company that loves to brag about how they do everything so well. And they generally do. Except of course, for services. And this is a service that they can’t even get off the ground. Clearly Tim Cook should have stepped in and done something by now. This has been dragging on for way too long. Get off your ass and do something Tim. Make some changes. You weren’t afraid to do it before. It’s really needed now.
This will explain everything http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/08/klintonerdammerung.php
AT&T just bought DirecTV. Why didn’t Apple beat them to it?
Programming ready to stream, via satellite or networks.
Better use of cash than buying stock, and watching the cash evaporate.
Tim Cook is a rotten apple in the barrel.
Because directtv is worthless
AT&T bought it to keep from becoming that dumb pipe that they are.
Whatever agreements exist between Direct TV and content providers would surely be subject to change/cancellation after a merger/aquisition. There was no guarantee that Apple would be permitted to deliver content DTV was contractually allowed to.
PS, Cook was one of Jobs’s first hires when he returned to aapl in 1998. Jobs turned over CEO responsibilities to Cook when Jobs was on sick leave and asked that Cook take over the company upon his death. So, after a decade of day to day work together, I am certain that Jobs had plenty pf time to size Cook up (and many others). I trust Jobs judgement based on his unparalleled success in the business world.
The saga continues. Eventually “What’ll next year.” will turn to “Give it rest already.” The hope, the hype, the end.
I doubt seriously things would be any different if Steve were still around, we’re talking about dealing with dinosaurs (i.e. networks) in a digital age..
No. You’re wrong.
Steve Jobs is to Eddy Cue as a steel beam is to a soggy piece of bread.
Perhaps you’ve forgotten already, but Steve Jobs was a force of nature. He bent men to his will routinely. You think Eddy Cue got the ink that launched iTunes Music Store? No, Steve Jobs did that.
I think Apple TV can still deliver something new, maybe MORE meaningful than the “Internet TV bundle.”
Apple TV already has “apps.” The content choices on Apple TV’s main screen, such as HBO, YouTube, and Netflix are all “apps.” There are equivalent apps for iPhone and iPad. But on Apple TV, they are currently all “built-in” content choices (from Apple), like the apps on iPhone during its first year (before the iOS App Store opened).
If the “apps on Apple TV” rumor is true, it’s to add new content choices to customize Apple TV for each customer. Using Apple’s dev tools and guidelines, third-party developers create apps for Apple TV that specifically provide access to new video content from ANY online source (subject to Apple’s policies and approval). Limited-audience content choices could be on Apple TV. It’s the opposite of the mass-market audience for the “Internet TV bundle.”
The “app store” is a new Apple TV screen, for selecting and managing these third-party content choices. Access to content is by monthly subscription, handled like existing paid choices such as Showtime, HBO, and Netflix. To prevent ridiculous proliferation, Apple requires a monthly subscription fee of at least 99¢ (or some minimum amount). Maybe Apple sponsors educational institution with free “iTunes U” subscription. Apple collects a percentage “cut” of revenue, like with current App Store revenue. (Existing Apple TV content choices that are “free” because they are linked to the customer’s cable TV service, or are otherwise funded, continue to be offered.)
It seems like the networks and cable companies don’t want to fsck themselves the way the music industry did, so they’re dragging their heels desperately hanging onto the old model and doing deals with anyone but Apple. You’d think the base plus the money on offer would be enough to drag them into the future, but the cable cos know they’re toast in a subscription universe. Gonna be a tough fight.
It’s that simple.
Eddy Cue is an unmitigated disaster. How this guy has a job today is inexplicable.
Forget traditional TV already!!!
Release the new AppleTV with an app store. Let the new AppleTV become a gaming console+, and a HomeKit server+, and a media server via apps+, etc……
Forget traditional TV! The horrible programing on the networks will doom them on their own.
Apple, go directly to the content providers, the individual programs. Skip the networks all together. Put a couple $B into purchasing old and new content. Put some really good new show on iTunes exclusively. It should be easy to compete with the poor quality and lack of innovation that the major networks are pushing, so just skip them and provide us with a better alternative already! Behave like Apple and give us consumers what we want, not “traditional” programing that is half ads and half brainless drivel.
Who cares about channels and live TV? When is Apple going to release it’s version of Netflix? Why is it wasting time trying to recreate cable TV?
http://www.cio.com/article/2947851/consumer-technology/where-is-apples-version-of-netflix.html
I smell an overdue reorganization. Timber just can’t get her done.
I smell lots of trolls this evening.
….. starting with the Bloomberg reporters!!!
I think at a certain point Jobs would have moved on without the companies that are holding out, forcing them to come into the fold once Apple TV went gangbusters. No one is Steve Jobs. So, I don’t expect that Cue would be able to do what he did.
What a shame! Apple with all the money in the world can’t get a deal done. Who’s afraid of Apple? No one. F&^%$ CBS and all the rest. Don’t they have TV shows and movies for a simple plan like Netflix’s. Forget $40 a month. Start with under 10 and people want to watch movies. This stupid Eddy is good for nothing. He can’t get anything done.
Actually, I think Eddy Cue (and Tim Cook) are tougher (way tougher) than Steve was. The problem is that when Steve negotiated, Apple was the little guy and the music companies threw him a bone. Now Apple is the 500-pound canary with bags and bags of cash. (a) They aren’t going to sneak up on the TV companies the way that Steve did the music companies. (b) The TV companies figure they can use this opportunity to get some of Apple’s cash because they have something Apple wants (content) and Apple has nothing that they need to offer in return. Eddy/Tim has a very weak bargaining position and all they can do is be patient and wait for the market to convince Big TV that it’s in their best interests to do business with Apple.
Right now there too many alternative vendors – Google, et al – that look “just as good” as Apple. This will take time; Big TV needs to realize that if they are to survive, they *must* deal with Apple. Right now, they aren’t smart enough to see that.
Patience.
I keep thinking that as wealthy as Apple is they should be able to twist some arms to get things done faster, but maybe the company doesn’t want to be seen as a bully which could affect future negotiations. I hate to speculate about these things because we’ll never actually know what’s taking place until the deals actually happen.
I thought it would be relatively easy for Apple to duplicate Netflix but it certainly doesn’t seem that way. Meanwhile Netflix stock is going through the roof while Apple stock is going nowhere. What’s the point of having all that money if Apple can’t do anything useful with it. However, I’m not in any position to criticize Apple since it is the company that has the largest market cap on Wall Street. Maybe things aren’t as easy as it seems. Maybe as you say it just takes time and patience. Apple having a down year is really just a blip for a company that’s been around for decades.
I’m probably just getting antsy from always hearing how dissatisfied investors are with everything Apple does now. I wouldn’t think it’s possible because things really don’t seem that bad to me but I could be wrong.
Why does everybody have to be on board first? iTunes didn’t have all the music labels at first, but the rest soon followed when they saw what happened. Same with movies and TV on iTunes. Same with banks and vendors for Apple Pay. If you wait for it all you’ll never get started. And just put game play on the Apple TV and you’ve got a new product anyway. And buy up some production companies and old content and launch a Netflix clone too. Been waiting for these no-brainers for three years. Yes they are easy, but they enrich the ecosystem and are long overdue.
Blame the stodgy old media oligarchy.
It’s time to put those old geezers out to pasture. The 21st century is just too, too much for them.