“Apple and Walt Disney executives in intensified negotiations in recent weeks are dealing with, among other things, the nettlesome issue of how many Disney-owned channels Apple will be required to carry on its long awaited Apple TV broadband video service,” Ronald Grover reports for TheStreet.
“According to people with knowledge of the talks, Disney is pressing Apple to take most if not all of its channels, which include several channel spinoffs of its mainstays ESPN and Disney Channel, while Apple wants to take fewer channels in a bid to keep the price down for its service, which is expected to be launched later this year,” Grover reports. “Apple hopes to announce content partners for its broadband video service in June, according to media reports, and to launch its subscriber service later in the year.”
Grover reports, “Apple is said to be aiming for a 25-channel offering priced at $30 to $40 a month.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: With ESPN in the fold, pretty much whatever Disney wants, Disney gets.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bill” for the heads up.]
If it goes over the basic (The price will have to follow.), it will be just another cable service – maybe with better customer service – with all the pricing and bullshit channels that would entice consumers to the product to begin with. If I were Apple in this negotiation, I’d leave out Disney and allow them to create an app where consumers can subscribe directly with Disney to get. Take themselves out of the bloat game that all the providers try to push – and use to justify their charges although the fact that you have another channel that you will rarely if ever watch does not justify a higher price at all.
Actually the BIGGEST difference between what we have with cable versus a broadband connection could be access to a channel’s entire back library (or a limited subset of it). THAT would definitely be worth more money than what cable offers.
disney knows ESPN = more money. Any service that includes ESPn will have no choice but to cost much higher than they want.
At $30 for 30 channels, it’s on par with any other Cable TV pricing. Why bother?
The real question is what other value they could bring to the table as part of a service like this.
Apple could buy Disney.
Not quite, but investing a stake to influence Disney is an interesting idea. Not to mention the financial diversity they would offer should an Apple product ever be a less than stellar seller.
Steve Jobs had the largest single shareholder quantity of Disney. He basically owned the company. His wife now owns it, but that relationship still has its ties.
Correct in Jobs being the largest single shareholder (due to Disney’s acquisition of Pixar, of which Jobs owned over half), but it was actually only a few percent of Disney….no more than 10%, if I remember correctly…
Great. Walt wants us to pay for all seven dwarfs when we really want to watch sleeping beauty. A la carte, anyone? Steve, please talk some sense into Walt — or give him a call if he’s not in the same place you are!
I don’t think The Walt Disney Company has much of Walt left; too many suits figuring how to be vastly more cutthroat.
Completely and sadly agree. 🙁
Take a read of Hiassin’s Team Rodent sometime. The portrait of Disney is somewhat less than flattering.
Indeed if the company has less of Walt all the better methinks.
iTV Store where each channel is $.99/month! Yeah, I know TV won’t go for that, but that is exactly why we now get few good channels and a bunch of crap with cable. It’s just like buying albums before iTunes Store: two good songs and ten or eleven that were crap.
Nobody wants ESPN, it is the reason cable companies have to charge so much, skip it. Next
Do you live in samdung land?
I have zero interest in ESPN, yet I am force to pay for it, the most expensive channel, because of bundling.
We want to dissolve bundles; we want to subscribe to “shows” not “channels”.
The sport nuts can’t live without ESPN. Personally I couldn’t care less.
They could do a big favor to the non-sports watchers in its audience by offering a bundle that does NOT include ESPN. ESPN is the most expensive non-premium cable channel and is one of the leading reasons why cable bills are so outrageously expensive these days. ESPN costs over $8 a month. Normal cable channels are about 14 cents. So If Apple wants an affordable option, let users who don’t want sports to tell Disney to stuff it. By all means, offer it to those who want to pay for it. Otherwise Apple’s service will be as bloated and expensive as cable tv is now.
There was an article in Advertising Weekly last year about how only 30% of the people who have ESPN would actually choose to buy it à la carte – Disney knows this and is desperate to maintain the status quo and the $7 billion a year it brings in. I gave up cable because I was tired to subsidizing content I didn’t watch – which included ESPN. It’s like sending Disney a check for $8 a month for absolutely nothing.
Seriously agree. Fuck sports. Sports are for low IQ guys that drink beer and work with their hands for a living.
Demon death kill – do you wear black boots, long black coat and black eye shadow? Reality is calling!
Not sure just which ‘reality’ you’re referring to:
* The one where highly expensive stuff like ESPN is shoved down everyone’s throat through bundling?
* The one where it is often a “Bubba” demographic that slurps up the Live Sports (not just ESPN) content…?
* …or has that morphed to the white-collar Bubba wannabes with their big SUV and McMansion as the only ones who can afford the big expensive bundle (the real Bubbas now watch it out at the local bar)?
And so on. The reality for some of us is that the corporate “tax” being charged to let us relax and kill off free time by watching sports has turned us off as consumers of them years ago, and we no longer miss them.
-hh
This sounds really crappy:
…how many Disney-owned channels Apple will be required to carry
IOW: It’s the same old GAG THE CUSTOMER WITH UNWANTED FLOTSAM, which will of course be reflected accordingly in an inflated price tag. This crappy idea is NOT what customers want. WE WANT: À la carte.
Basic capitalist concept applied to media: Let EACH ‘channel’ survive on-its-own, letting the FREE MARKET decide what survives and what dies. NO BUNDLES EVER, unless that is what the customer specifically chooses, all by themselves.
Anything else is just regressive legacy enablement, aka propping up crap product with treasure product. NOT acceptable.
So Disney? SHOVE IT.
I’m out!
Why not make the additional channels an “in-app” purchase?
So much for only being able to pick the channels we want…..
I hope “Beverly Hillbillies” will be available.
I’m interested in whatever product Apple has planned but I’m not holding my breath. Unless they can deliver a superior service (regardless of price) I’ll stick with Comcast and TiVo.
I’m actually surprised that people complain about the cable companies so much. When do you ever have to deal with them? A 4-hour window when you get it hooked up the first time and that should be it.
Stop being so cheap and spring for TiVo boxes for each of your TVs (Yes, you’ll have to pay an additional monthly fee for the TiVo service). But, I’m more than willing to pay extra for quality. Tried a Motorola DVR and a second TV for a month and I seriously don’t know how anyone tolerates such a piece of crap.
IMO, this is what the new Apple TV needs:
1. Ability to stream any show you want from the cloud or an internal HD to your HDTV, Mac or iPad.
2. Commercial-free programs or a premium subscription plan with that option.
3. Access to live sporting events.
4. 1080, or preferably, 4K quality.
5. An easy-to-use interface. One main App that controls all of the channel Apps. I can’t be bothered having to launch different apps to find the show I want.
6. Plenty of options. I may not watch most of the channels I get with cable, but my family of 4 watches enough shows from enough different channels, that it will be difficult to replace.
Crap, another bundle with forced ESPN channels.
I have zero interest in ESPN channels yet those are the most expensive.
Every four years, I do want to watch the World Cup. I’d like to catch most of the Formula One races, too, but, that’s about the extent of my sports viewing. I’ve never, actually, had any cable TV services except for basic (broadcast) channels, and now that Comcast has encrypted _everything_, I dropped them and set up an antenna, which, yes, gives me more local channels than Comcast offers. Anything else I need, I view online.
I watch maybe 4-5 College Football games a year and have no other use for ESPN. I’ll take PPV for College FB and leave Disney and it’s other channels behind.