“In 1959 5,749,000 television sets were sold in the US, bringing the cumulative total of sets sold since 1950 to 63,542,128 units. This number supported, through advertising, three national television networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS (a fourth, Dumont, folded in 1956) and numerous local independent stations. Television was big business by the start of the 1960’s,” Menta writes. “Now here are another set of numbers. As of April this year Apple sold 75 million iPhone and iPod touch units, devices capable of delivering video via Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. Add to that figure 2 million iPads and counting. By the end of the year Apple should have about 90 million smart mobile devices in the wild.”
MacDailyNews Note: Apple CEO Steve Jobs just said during his WWDC 2010 keynote address that Apple would pass the 100 million device mark this month.
Menta continues, “That makes a proprietary amalgam greater than what the TV networks had in 1959 and one that easily serves as a foundation for a pending broadcast network that will be delivered not through tall radio towers, but through small wireless hubs and the Internet. Call it the Apple Broadcast Network. iAd is how Apple plans to pay for it.”
“Last April, Broadpoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall mused that Apple could generate through a hybrid pricing model as much as $32 per 1,000 viewers. That’s pure speculation, but if Apple comes anywhere close to Marshall’s figure then it becomes just a matter of how large a cut Apple offers Zucker and his ilk to free up network programming,” Menta writes. “If that happens the Apple Broadcast Network becomes a reality. ‘If’ is the key word here.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dow C.” for the heads up.]
Another model on it’s head.
now if only they could somehow make tv over the internet look as good as BluRay, then they’d have something!!
I had to laugh when I saw that $60 million number. That’s really X2 for the year, but even that number is ridiculously low.
These ads will sell.
These ads will be effective.
The demand for these ads will exceed supply, not because of the number of impressions will be limitted, but rather demand will be so high and Apple will be so involved in the process.
F bluray!!! VHS beat betacam back in the 80s proving that the vast majority of the viewing public values convenience over quality.
ain’t nuthin’ changed—when they say why? why? tell ’em that it’s human nature–why? why?…..
If you want to glimpse a potential future Apple Broadcast Network, simply turn on your Apple TV. It’s all there, sans iAds of course..
Apple has the the technology. It simply needs to flip the switch on Apple TV iAds to demonstrate the potential monetization of video content delivered via the net.
Of course, since there are way more vested interests in keeping TV in the dark ages, than there is in the PC world, Apple must step gingerly at first, then (wait for it) “Open The Flood Gates”!
I’d subscribe.
This is one of the more retarded things I read today, but I always get a chuckle out of the irony of hit pieces about the death of internet advertising.
Apple has no more interest in being a network than they did being a record label or a newspaper.
I’ve never understood the hesitation. If NBC were to broadcast ‘Chuck’ and get 5 Million viewers on TV and 1 Million viewers on the web, that is 6 million viewers regardless of the medium they watch it on. If they are trading broadcast dollars for internrt prnnies, that is their fault.
If Apple wants to, it has direct contact with millions of customers with no competition to get in the way. There could be an Apple Channel of sorts with anything they’d want. Could be interesting someday, just not yet I think.
@ Quad Core
That makes two of us, especially regarding Chuck. I’d subscribe to the Apple Broadcast Network, especially if I could get TV programming on the same day as its over-air or cable broadcast.
I would definitely be interested in true, mobile, tv on demand.
“In 1959 5,749,000 television sets were sold in the US, bringing the cumulative total of sets sold since 1950 to 63,542,128 units.”
Seriously, that’s the total units sold in 50 years? I would have thought it to be 10 times larger.
How many homes have multiple TVs now, and how many times have people’s TVs died and they’ve had to get a new one, not to mention those people who buy a TV set every second year to get the latest technology.
Can it be only 65M sold in 50 years?
@GregoriusM
That was just from 1950-1959. Nine years, not 50. Check the quote you copied.
“Tis better to be thought a fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt…”
@MDN,
Steve Jobs said 100,000 iOS devices will have been sold this month…
Do you REALLY think ALL are still in use? 90 million ‘in the wild’ is a perfectly sensible number… Based on conjecture surely, but there really is no other way to tell, now is there?
So much giggling, so cool!
Steve Jobs said 100,000 iOS.
Are you a concern troll or is there really no other way to tell, now is there?
JustMe
Low reading comp. skills? yes?
The quote MDN corrected was “By the end of the year Apple should have about 90 million smart mobile devices in the wild.”
That is stupid low as they have already sold 100M (what MDN said) by the end of the year that figure could (easily) be 150M.
so no more 3g or cellular for our ipads and iphones in the future ?
it will all be wi fi via the apple network , there’s loads of wi fi hot spots everywhere now !
cant come soon enough for me
I am curious if it is possible to detect if a wireless router with a given IP is broadcasting the network. Would you detect this over SNMP?
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/acai-max-cleanse-review-does-acai-max-cleanse-work-2589647.html
In 1959, the population of the US was just over 150,000,000, median income was less than $3,000, and television sets cost $300-$1,200. TV cases were big wooden boxes, designed for table-top use or as standalone furniture. For those reasons, they were not personal devices. It was unusual for a household to have more than one, and hospital rooms generally didn’t have them. In 1959, I lived in a city where there was only one broadcast channels. There was no cable TV. My family couldn’t afford a TV until 1955, when my father got one from a friend who was a TV repairman.
For an actor at the time, moving to TV from the stage or screen was bad career move. TV had yet to gain respect as a serious medium.
I don’t think there is any way to make a valid comparison between TVs in 1959 and Apple products today.
If Apple wanted to create a internet broadcast network they would need to first set up a BILLION DOLLAR SERVER FARM to support it. Yes, much like the one in North Carolina.
The author is misusing the term “network”. A network is not a content host; a network finances and in some cases produces the content. Apple currently hosts content produced and financed by others on iTunes.
If you say “Apple could stick iAds into this content and revenue share with providers”, sure they could, but that wouldn’t make them a network.
Again, Apple has no interest in financing or creating the content. The same way Jobs admitted Apple didn’t know the first thing about spotting musical talent when asked if he considered starting an Apple music label.
Maybe its only me, but I think it is ironic that the article states … “rampant abuse (click fraud, oppressive pop-ups, spam etc.)” …and that the word “pop-ups” then displays its own oppressive pop-up.
I agree these are oppressive and a form of reader abuse. Why does MDN, which I otherwise love to read, imbed them in the articles? They serve no purpose except to aggravate, and can’t possibly generate any meaningful money.
The biggest clog in the wheel at this point is the delivery network. Mobile phone networks can’t handle that kind of capacity right now. WiFi connections are too few and far between, or are locked to some kind of subscription requirement. And we saw what happened to the WiFi at WWDC when too many people were on it at once.
Until WiFi hotspots become commonplace and virtually everywhere, or the mobile networks boost their capabilities to handle this huge data onslaught, Apple can’t implement its broadcasting vision.