“Apple has spent years circling the TV business, without ever really getting into the TV business,” Peter Kafka reports for Re/code. “Now it may be ready to try again.”
“Industry executives say Apple is in talks with TV programmers about deals that would allow Apple to offer an ‘over the top’ pay TV, service, like the one Dish has started selling with its Sling TV product, and the one Sony is getting ready to launch,” Kafka reports. “The theory is that Apple would put together bundles of programming — but not the entire TV lineup that pay TV providers generally offer — and sell it directly to consumers, over the Web. That means Apple wouldn’t be reinventing the way TV works today, but offering its own version of it, with its own interface and user experience.”
“Apple has shown programmers demos of the proposed service, sources say,” Kafka reports. “But talks seem to be in the early stages, which means terms like pricing and timing aren’t close to being ironed out. Several programmers say they’ve yet to start talks with Apple at all.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Apple is just now getting this started? What took so long?
Monopolies like NBC/Comcast, etc
I think ‘restart’ would be the right headline here. Apple has spent years trying to produce a solution to its and the channels/programme makers liking and clearly failed to solve that conundrum. With changes overall happening even though at a snails pace they are clearly giving it another go or at the very least testing the ground to discover if there is a viable future for its plans.
Things worth paying for: Game of Thrones, House of Cards and Arrested Development. Things not worth paying for: America’s Got Talent, Chicago Fire and CSI Whatever.
Hannibal and The Fall are both very good too.
Wheeler Dealers, TV at its best.
Glad someone mentioned ‘The Fall’, absolutely top notch tv.
I pay for Moonshiners and Gold Rush and that there Richard Rawlings show you know the one with the little feller with the big beard!
Buy Disney, get ESPN
Not even Apple could afford to buy Disney. Its got a $160B market cap, and that’s just the trading price. To buy it would take about a quarter of a trillion dollars.
The Steve Jobs Trust is the largest single share holder of Disney are the Pixar deal.
They would only need controlling interest. Maybe not even that much. But at any rate, probably $100B would suffice.
HBO, Showtime, BBC and Turner Classic Movies. Maybe ONE ESPN- not 6,000.
The rest is useless.
Are you joking? Or do you really think your PERSONAL taste is the ultimate determinant of what is worthwhile?
Look out Mama there’s a big ship coming down the river…
“…there’s a WHITE BOAT comin’ down the river…”
How many channels or networks are out there? Why can’t there be tier pricing for a set amount of channels, as opposed to a provider package deal of over 100 channels. I bet I can get by with less then 15 channels or stations and the content they provide so break down quantity of channels at Tier pricing levels BUT let the purchaser define the channel/station line-up of their choosing. A la carte is what I am dreaming of!
The “channel” concept is what we need to get rid off. This is so old school. Unless you redefine channel as “Smart Playlist” or “Genre”.
A saturating pay-per-view tariff would be even better: for low consumption, the price increases linearly with consumption, but the per-view price drops to e.g., 1/3 as you consume more.
Well being able to select channels would at least be a start it reflects the track v album flexibility that powered iTunes when it launched. However you are right, longer term that is only a half way house solution.
I might add that in the US, cable TV plans are horribly expensive, and might induce prospective US-originated digital Video rental providers (Yes, TV mark 2, I am talking about you) to overestimate the value of video per-view rentals.
Where I live, we pay €6-€12/mo for a decent number of channels.
Assuming one watches 2 paying items/day, the price per view is only 12/(2*30) = .20 €/view.
Movie/show rentals at €5 a piece, therefore, are 25x more expensive.
There is still a long way to go for digital Video until it becomes attractive as an alternative to old school TV.
Good move. We don’t need a TV, we need a cable killer. Live events, exclusive ones. Apple Studios would be cool.
Spend some money buying/producing original content, make it exclusive on the AppleTV.
Everybody will buy an ATV, the ecosystem expands and improves.
My favorite series lately have been House of Cards, Game of Thrones, The Fall. Let’s get some exclusive series like these on ATV.
But make it affordable too. I don’t mind paying Spotify $10 a month, I don’t mind paying Apple $20 for Music Match.
Oh ya, my daughter has to have “Dance Moms” too. So give us à la carte of all the major tv shows too. I prefer a flat monthly rate option for “all I can eat.”
Let me watch what I want, when I want. I will be happy to pay for each show I watch. What I don’t want is to pay for stuff I don’t watch. The current cable/satellite services all require that I pay for stuff I don’t watch. That’s why I cut the chord years ago.
So what part of the chord did you cut? The third, and now you just play open fifths? A missing fifth wouldn’t mean much, and a missing root, without context, would sound like a different chord entirely, so cutting the third makes the most sense.
What?… You meant cord? Oh. Sorry. Yeah, I would have done that, too, but I’m too far from civilization to pick up anything over the air, so cable is my only option. And I still supplement it with Netflix, Hulu, etc. And yes, from a much older topic, the occasional torrent when a show gets preempted by something and the DVR misses it. This a la carte access is what I’m wanting, but not sure how local channels will fit in there. :/
I hope they consider packages WITHOUT ESPN. I don’t watch it, yet ESPN is by far the most expensive set of channels in your cable package, costing the companies $5-7 for the ESPN suite of channels. It’s ridiculous to have that much tacked on for a channel I’ll never watch. I have no problem with them offering an ESPN package, which many people would enjoy. I just want a choice in the matter. It’s the problem with DISH’s offering. It includes ESPN in the base. I’d rather have other channels instead.