Apple Is Talking to TV Programmers About Its Own Web TV Service

Apple is making an awful lot of noise lately about jumping into the TV business with the likes of Dish and Sony. The service would be Internet based, bundling together programming and selling directly to the Internet consumer. Apple is said to be presently in talks with providers about securing programming. It may or may not come to pass, but it would be novel to be able to pick and choose the programming we wish to see.

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.

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I'm skeptical until I see what these guys are actually offering. As long as I don't have to pay for hundreds of crappy channels and can get at least some of the sports I'm interested in, I'll probably give one of these services a try.

Considering it's apple, I'm sure they will find a way to make it even more expensive than cable, by hidding the cost with hidden charges so people think they are saving money.

Not sure if I would go with Apple on a service like this but the more paving the way towards a la carte programming the better.

fdiaz78 said:

Not sure if I would go with Apple on a service like this but the more paving the way towards a la carte programming the better.

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Yup. I cancelled my cable because all I want is Fox News, Fox Business(a damn good business channel), and Comedy Central. TWC makes you buy a package which is useless as I have no interest is anything else.

I used to be waiting for all these streaming services. I tried a tivo for OTA, aero (before it was shutdown), etc. It wasn't until I recently picked up a tablo that I've lost all interest in streaming channels. I probably sound like a commercial, but it's pretty damn awesome for $5/month and I really don't have much need for cable networks.

That being said with a streaming service I hope apple updates it's tv w/ an app store and I would be all over that. I have a roku 3, fire stick, and several apple tv's. I prefer the apple tv over the others, just wish it had native support for plex and tablo. Then I would be set.

Of course I don't watch sports much. I think that's where a lot of people get stuck on cable. However I also feel "taxing" the rest of the subscribers who couldn't care less about espn and all the other sports channels is BS. But I suspect any streaming which includes espn or fox sports isn't going to save anybody over their cable bill.

Another Original Idea, I'm sure.

I can tell how this is going to go down with how the article fails to mention Netflix and Amazon making their own content.

If it has any chance of changing the current business model with content providers, I'm all for it...and anyone should be, even the most avid Apple haters.

Well a la carte will never happen. well in the next 20 years. Because 90% of the content is created by 3 different companies. You want history channel, you must take discovery and animal planet(every channel is setup with way) you want fox, gotta take fox, fsn, and all of the local fox channels. ie anything they have OTA in said market. Dealing with them is a pain in the ass. Also getting them to understand compression is hard. they want you to use all 19mb of a channel they don't care if you can get that down to 5 using mpg4. Biggest problem is no one is allowed to talk about how much they pay for a channel. Considering comcast is basically NBC which is one of the 3 big content providers I'm guessing they pay far less for 65% of there per user channel cost. thus making it cheaper for them to run than any cable/OTA/Over the top internet service..

Apple has been very tight lipped about their tv plans. Steve Jobs said they nailed it - but he has been dead for what, 3-4 years now? You'd think they would have announced something by now if they really had a product. (Who knows what Steve was talking about - certainly not the AppleTV - not a bad device, but too locked down for me).
Anything that can get us to a la carte! (It will be a bloody fight).

I just got an offer from TWC for a basic package for $10 a month for the first year. It actually doesn't seem to be a bad deal. However, I've been cable-free for over 5 years. I am going to have to pass on this deal.

Whoever passed the info on tablo - thanks. I'm going to check it out - sounds pretty nice.

I think what they had was the device and service set up, but honestly I don't think they landed any contracts. If they did they would of released it by now.

OEM said:

If it has any chance of changing the current business model with content providers, I'm all for it...and anyone should be, even the most avid Apple haters.

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Apple's biggest asset is a flock of sheep that is their customer base which they can go to the movie industry and record industry with. Very little to do with Apple, more to do with the sheep. People, if they didn't walk around with their heads up their ass waiting for Apple to make a new shiney, could have helped bring about the change already.

I just got sling, its neat but needs fox business I just get better sense of things compared to bloomberg

jpm100 said:

Apple's biggest asset is a flock of sheep that is their customer base which they can go to the movie industry and record industry with. Very little to do with Apple, more to do with the sheep. People, if they didn't walk around with their heads up their ass waiting for Apple to make a new shiney, could have helped bring about the change already.

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hmmm, so the reason why no one has been able to create a successful a la carte subscription service is because Apple customers refuse to do look toward the [non-existant] competition?

jpm100 said:

Apple's biggest asset is a flock of sheep that is their customer base which they can go to the movie industry and record industry with. Very little to do with Apple, more to do with the sheep. People, if they didn't walk around with their heads up their ass waiting for Apple to make a new shiney, could have helped bring about the change already.

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I don't think apple's customer base are the one's with their head up their ass.

Good lord some people have some real mental issues with regards to Apple on here.

As for the topic at hand. Comcast and AT&T already have robust streaming options that you can have access to with a cable sub. Look for them to spin those off and offer them as stand alone.

The only thing that streaming services will affect is our already absurd broadband prices. They will just increase them to offset the loss in TV revenue, until we have true competition there is not solution.

That and we need to some how uncouple the content providers and ISP/Cable co.