Apple pitches $30 a month iTunes TV subscriptions - report - Page 2

Hulu is moving to a paid subscription model. Bye bye free internet TV.

I actually have to agree. Apple came in fairly early to the digital downloads game, but they flounder along with very weak offering. AppleTV needs to step up the game in their partnerships, subscriptions and mystifyingly absent DVR capabilities. Nearly any of these things added would make for a more compelling product.

The argument to not pay for an ATV subscription when you can watch your shows for free may be irrelevant. Last months the LA Times and other news agencies reported that a paid subscription plan may be in the works for Hulu. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...0,980649.story

Furthermore, the vast majority of shows on cable hold little or no interest for for large chunks of the population. As in most people who are avid fans of Lifetime programing are less likely to be huge History Channel buffs. As a result if you could choice for example 15 show or 5 channels a month to subscribe to for $30 and be able to watch them on your iPhone, Computer, or in your Living Room, i would totally drop cable. The vast majority of cable channels hold little or no interest to me and i would be willing to drop them and the high price cable is charging for the privilege of saying I have 100+ channels of viewing pleasure, even though I only watch a handful of them regularly. This structure would also allow channels to receive payment based on the proportion of subscribers that are watching their channel, instead of just a flat cut of the subscription fee.

The biggest hurdle I can see however, is the increased demand that cable providers will have on their internet lines while loosing cable customers. This will likely correlate to high internet cost.

I also want to watch any TV show or movie found on any channel in the world. Some of us know (or want to learn) another language besides English, so why not? Chinese or Russian or German or Italian or <insert your language here> would be cool. Why should Hollywood be excluded from free trade agreements?

Why should I be restricted to content that is found on (mostly) crappy American cable TV channels. I do not want to be forced into buying a "package" of mostly crappy channels that I don't want. I also do not want to do a "pay per view" for each program. IF "pay per view" were such a great idea, then it would dominate the cable TV market.

False. Hulu will continue to serve free contents. It will, however, start offering premium contents for a price.

$30 on top of my monthly cable bill- I don't think so. OPen the AppleTV up already- let us decide where we want to get our entertainment, not Apple. Put Safari on ATV and let me determine how I want to be entertained, not iTunes.

And BTW- kind of hypocritical how you all are for this subscription model for video but cried to high heaven when Microsoft offered subscription music for their Zune.

My cunning plan is panning out nicely. Soon... world domination!

Oh here he goes again. Seriously, if Apple upsets you this much it's probably not the best forum to visit everyday. And by the way, the real plan isn't to have this on top of your cable service, but to be a cable competitor, some place down the line. They'll probably have a basic plan for $30, and a full plan for $50, with everything you'd normally get on cable, all shows, and live sports and news. That would be ideal, but I assume difficult to get inked.

Huh!?! So if you could select any show from any network (or the ones who agree to allow it) whenever you want, you wouldn't pay $30/month for the service? I would drop my DirecTV service in a heartbeat for this! Hulu is going toward a paid service for up-to-date content, so you won't be doing that for free much longer. Plus, it's only a couple networks' content.

Apple has an advantage b/c they have over 65 million consumers that use iTunes. The are the world leader for the online music service. If you couple this with the TV networks, it could be a huge success.

CableTV is migrating toward online distribution anyway, so the first company to successfully integrate all of this will be the dominant company. Apple is very capable of combining all of these variables to offer a great ecosystem for media. It may not happen right away, but I foresee Apple being a major player with this in the coming year/years!

The cable companies have us captured anyway. If you want live sports, financial news, local news, and high speed internet, you have to use them. Sure satellite + dsl is an option but dsl isn't all that fast especially for downloading video from iTunes Store - and satellite isn't always perfect either. A few neighborhoods have Fios but it is not that widespread yet.

The cable companies aren't in the business of letting us choose á la carte programming. You get the movie channel package or the sports package or the whatever package. They hope that you will find one program in each package indispensable so you order the everything package for $100+ per month and they still get to sell you pay-per-view.

TV is an addiction and they are the crack dealers. But sure if you just wanted stand alone high-speed Internet the cost will be much higher than when combined with TV service or phone as well.

This happens and I might actually use iTunes for more than Music and the RARE video rental.

I want NBC and BBC (real BBC not BBCA) so I can watch the new episodes of Top Gear.

I have to disagree with those folks saying "nobody" will cancel their cable/satellite because of sports. There are lots of people who don't watch ANY sports or care about seeing them live (ie - don't gamble on them).

Sports broadcasting is just one niche of all TV programming.

FIOSS cost/cost compared to Comcast in PA... Less than half the speed. You'll NEVER reach the advertised speeds. The 20/10 plan barely reaches 9/1.

The download of SD and HD is so you have something to play at home and something to play on the go. An HD file is a lot bigger and would consume a tremendous amount of power if you were able to play it on a handheld device.


I'd like to see offering rentals in the first place. I don't think I want the subscription though.


Do you mean Singapore dollars? I know the USD is down, but according to XE.com, £15 is currently worth $24.55, not US$40.

OMG we agree on something. Did the clocks stop...lol

I watched the 24hr LeMan's this year with BOTH Speed TV and Speed Online (you had to switch when they took it off the air to the web and vice-versa). That was cool. The 4yr old couldn't do it 24hrs straight but I did. Went to bed at 11am Sunday. LOL

iTunes doesn't have nearly the amount of programming TV does and besides isn't the TV on iTunes not available until the day after it airs?

They did! For 1 hour Saturday Night!

Yeah it seems like DSL is going to be stuck at 6meg download while I am now getting 30meg from Cable. I would love for FIOS to make it to my area but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Yeah thats true and its drepressing how early it gets dark now.

If the goal was to pick off the dollars that customers currently allocated towards pay-channels; namely, HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc. it might work if for no other reason than when Tablet comes out you could have a TV anywhere offering to view same content on iPhone, Tablet, Desktop and Apple TV for one price.

I do agree with others, though, that it sets up somewhat of an ALL-or-NONE as to whether same price includes Movies/TV and Music.

Some fodder on this one in my post:

Apple, TV and the Smart, Connected Living Room
http://bit.ly/k4rOf

Check it out, if interested.

Mark

If you get it for free, you'll watch what they give you to see.

If you pay for it, you'll watch what you want to see.

Apple doesn't upset me at all. In NYC we have Cable on Demand and in HD. We already watch what we want when we want . This is nothing new to us. The last thing I would want is a low quality iTunes stream of a show. This sounds so 1999 geared for your desktop.

This all sounds great, except for the fact that Comcast throttles my 20mbps service down to 4mbps if I cancel my TV service from them (and they never tell you this).

I had two technicians come to my house to diagnose why I was getting 4mbps instead of 16-20 (like my co-worker was getting). They quickly told me that Comcast bumps customers down to 4mbps when they cancel their TV service. I signed up for the $16.99 basic cable and my internet jumped back to 20mbps.

Seems that Comcast is doing underhanded things to protect their TV business, and discourage people from getting all their video from the internet.

Okay here's my take on the whole thing...

I would save me a sizeable chunk of change!

I live in the North East and I get my cable from Cablevision (not that I have a choice in the matter since FIOS still has not made the 10 mile trek from the GW Bridge (NYC) to my part of NJ but thats a whole nother story.

Okay Cablevision here's what I'm currently paying for..

- High speed internet 10MB down 1.5MB up. clearly this will not change $44.95 I believe.

- Basic service which everyone needs as a bare minimum the major networks and a selection of old but good cable channel favorites - HGTV, SciFi (nee SyFy) - The History Channel (I think). Some ESPN and a plathora of news channels etc etc etc... $12.18

- IO this is were all of the more hip/new/whatever? channels exist. Science Channel, History International, G4, Green, and a host of others. forget the cost

- Pay channels..... don't ask me WHY but I've been foolishly playing for all the premium movie channels for the past 6 months or so... I can count on one hand the number of times per month we actually sit down and watch a movie from start to finish... Usually its a flip thu all the crap and oh okay Die Hard it's in the middle but my wife LOVES Bruce so we leave it on.. Same deal if Overboard pops up or Aliens... Some moveies she can watch over and over again no matter how many times she's seen em.

Combined IO+All-Premium Movie Channles is IO-GOLD $95.95 this includes the 12.18 indicated above

OH and to actually VIEW any of the IO channels you need to rent a cable box...

1 for Family Room HDTV
1 for Master Bedroom HDTV
1 for Guest Room Non-HDTV

Cable Box Fee: 6.51 box + .24 remote = 6.75 x3 = 20.25

Forgot one more thing PVR... My wife tends to never watch a show when its on anymore.. instead she records shows... Some on both the Family Room (Bigger Screen) and MBR and then the guest room gets one to for the shows **I** happen to like that always get erased to make room for some crazy Cop Drama or Hospital of Lust type TV show.

And the PVR cost an additional $9.95 per month each box: 29.85

So to add it all up:

95.95 = Basic+IO+Premiums Channels
20.25 = Cable Boxes x3
29.85 = PVR Costs x3

$146.05 per MONTH (not including broadband)

Then a plethora of misc cost, taxes fees, surcharges etc etc etc.

I can replace all that with:

An iTunes based service @ somewhere between $39-$49 a month.

- Provided it gives me unfettered access to:

- 'The Majors' prime time programs in something resembling HD
- 'The Cable Gems' access to hit TV series that are found on the 'non-major' networks.
- A reasonably interesting catalog of movies HD and SD would be fine provided HD is growing

It would sure be a no brainer for me...

What would I loose?

- Cable news? Ummm okay I can deal with that.
- Premium Movie Channels (bah no loss there)
- Premium Cable Channels (SyFi, Science Channel, NGC, etc)***

*** Okay this would be my only real loss from where I'm sitting... but if shows like Stargate Universe, Eureka (if its still airing), Damages (again I think this is gone too), and the like then it wouldn't be TOO painful but I'd still miss getting my fix of Science Channels random collection of space and future-in-fifty-years type stuff

I'm not a sports nut so Golf and all of the ESPNs could drop off the cable lineup and I'd never even know it.

All in all I'd seriously consider it... ESPECIALLY if we had access to the back catalog of prime time TV hits without having to worry about the PVR having space or if we recorded it upstairs, downstairs or the guest room... (we can't network our cable boxes so no multi-room love with Cablevision).

I'd still pay for 'basic cable' so all the TVs had over the air stuff and since Cablevision is required by the FCC to provide HD signals from 'the majors' as part of basic service my QAM tuner equipped TVs won't even need boxes. Oh I would take a $5 up-charge for my Cable Modem since I'm not an IO subscriber but hey its still an enormous savings.

I'd sign up in a heartbeat. I already spend that much AND pay about $100 per month for a full cable package. I know, it sounds dumb, but there's a lot of stuff I can't get in Canada that is available on iTunes. I travel to the US several times each month, it's nice to have high quality video for the trip.

Who said nobody? You are absolutely correct that not everyone watches sports, although I find the idea that any significant portion of the sports watching population like to watch time delayed sports programming to be quite laughable. I don't gamble on sports, but knowing the final score kind of kills the suspense.

The lack of live programming also hurts avid watchers of any show. I'm a 24 junkie, I don't want to wait to watch 24 "tomorrow" when my friends have watched it "today" and can't stop talking about it.

Then, believe it or not, some people watch news, which is again best served live.

Once you start adding up all these "niches", you start to cover a significant portion of the population that would be adversely affected by the lack of live programming.

From a business standpoint, I think subscriptions are the only way to successfully offer TV Show rentals that are ad free. What pricing model would you use for TV Show rentals?



This problem is bound to get worse. The internet is eating into their business and the cost per person to maintain their connection to the networks will increase. Youll see a rate hike or a stagnation of bandwidth at a current price point to maintain price points.

This is yet another pathetic attempt to jump start the AppleTV before it gets finally sent off to product oblivion. First they put the lipstick on the roasted pig last week and now this. When will they learn to finally open it up?

Yep and it is usually a movie I couldn't sit through even one time.

I have broadcast (not cable or satellite) television, and I rarely watch it. I have a local, independent video a store 3 blocks away that has an enormous and crazy collection of diverse and obscure titlesas well as mainstream titles. 4 rentals for 4 days for 5 bucks. [sarcasm]Yeah, its a total tragedy to have to walk 3 blocks to rent them.[/sarcasm]

Hulu via Boxee on my ATV is unwatchable, which is now moot since I broke Boxee by updating to 3.0. Hulu on my iBook is watchable (if I dont mind having a sweaty lap after watching a few episodes of Bewitched) although a decidedly not very cinematic experience. I like Hulus ad supported business model, which Ive heard will change to a pay per view model in 2010 anyway.

For TV programs (from classic shows to current network and cable shows) Id much rather stream them with an ad based model or pay the video store to rent them*, than to stream them with a pay per view or purchase model. Since several episodes are usually on each DVD, the cost per episode is pennies. Renting TV episodes via iTunes is a rip-off, and iTunes TV programs and film library is currently pitifully small.

For films, Im willing to stream at a pay per view model. Though my video store is still much cheaper and has considerably larger and more interesting library. Steaming has the only benefit of having 24x7 access and not having to leave the couch.

I dont want to own** or have to manage a collection of television or film files (or DVDs).
I dont want to have to subscribe to anythingcable, satellite, iTunes, HuluI dont even have an ISP or cellular contract. Less commitment, not more please!

This is my BIG problem with Apple being in the content market. It creates a cash cow that conflicts with them providing the best possible consumer products, because they always have to cripple their hardware or software in order not to undermine their content revenue. I dont think this is in the best interest of the consumer, only Apple. I mean come on, ATV 3.0, wheres the love for external drive access?

*Unfortunately this method would preclude new programming that isnt on DVD yet.

**With copyright, theres really no owning them anyway.

Seriously, take a look at satellite. Much better pricing and you don't have to invest in any equipment (unless you want to connect like 10 TVs).

And for those households were sports is not a major priority NOT having ESPN and YES etc makes it that much easier to say... "Hey honey? There's gonna be a good game on tonight I think I'm gonna pop over to the pub at see if I can catch it,,,"

Just because it's funny doesn't mean I'm not serious!

Agreed. There is no way I would pay that much, when I can watch Netflix on-demand for far less. Of course Netflix doesn't offer current season TV shows either.

Hulu leaves a lot to be desired in my opinion. For example, on Hulu if I want to watch old episodes of Star Trek: TNG, I can't, unless I rent them from Netflix. So there is definitely room for Apple to fill the void, but not at that price.

TV is simply not worth more than ~$20 a month. End of story. More than that and I'll just rent the DVDs when they come out. NOTHING is compelling enough to make me want to watch immediately, unless it's a live event.

I don't think Apple is misunderstanding what people want at all. We all know that Apple 'could' revolutionize the TV programming distribution landscape entirely if they were given free reins. The reason they are not doing so is because the battle field is all divvy'ed up already and each hard fought for corner is closely guarded and protected. Even if all content providers agreed, existing distribution networks and their legal contracts be damned (they'd need to be executed to get past them), the bandwidth issue would also have to be solved. I think Apple has a long term view on this and they are only interested if they sell boxes at the end of it.

An Apple subscription would be nice.

If Comcast tried to block Apple on getting content for the NBA programming then the DOJ might have something to say about that.

Netflix and iTS compete but there is a lot of areas in which they dont compete. For instance, TV Shows you can get on iTS wont be available until on Netflix until after the season is over and printed to disc. Then at some point after that it will be available for streaming from Netflix. If you can wait, great, but most people dont seem to like to.

What this rumor is proposing is more-or-less direct competition to the cable/sat companies. If I can use my subscription on the go, including from the iPhone and Touch then this might be popular. Price point and packages are key here.

You say $20 a month is too much, but I know people that spend multiple times that a month on cable, not including internet or phone service. The renting of the cable boxes and DVRs can run $20 without the service costs.

We didn't expect you to understand. You can be quite a negative person. i disagree with Apple the whole time, but I try not to get the whole forum on a downer. So pay you're $85 and stick with your cable, no need to moan about it.

Erm...Mr Munster...Apple doesn't own any of that content to use as leverage It does have the Jukebox so maybe that's what you mean't to say.

Ooooh, unlimited viewings of Cash Cab anyone?

Have you seen the "sub-library" Netfflix offers to its Instant Watch subscribers? Good thing it's free.

What about some FREE content too?! Also, this should launch NOW, during the cold months when people are more likely to be inside... I guess Boxee, Hulu and Crackle are still our best friends for streaming content...