Apple TV offered as set-top cable box alternative in France
Vivendi's Canal+ Group on Monday announced plans to offer Apple TV 4K as an alternative to traditional set-top cable television boxes for subscribers in France, marking one of the first deployments of Apple's device from an established pay-TV provider.
Starting May 17, Canal+ customers in France will be able to rent Apple TV 4K for 6 euros per month ($7 per month), the same fee currently charged for cable TV set-top boxes.
Through an arrangement with Apple, Canal+ will directly distribute the Apple TV 4K streaming devices to customers, who can use the equipment to access their subscription channel lineups. Since Apple TV lacks coaxial cable support, subscribers will likely need to download the MyCanal app for full functionality.
In addition to cable TV content, users who opt for Apple TV benefit from access to Apple's tvOS App Store, Siri voice control and first party Apple apps including Apple Music.
Frank Cadoret, deputy manager of Canal+ France, touted the Apple partnership in a statement provided to Variety.
"Apple TV is the perfect showcase for our premium content exclusives, in particular cinema, sport and our original creations," Cadoret said.
For Apple, the Canal+ integration could be the first of many pay-TV deployments. The growing number of mobile apps from premium content providers legitimizes Apple TV as a direct cable box replacement, not an over-the-top alternative.
"We believe that Canal customers will love using the Apple TV 4K as a decoder," said Apple VP of Apple Music and international content Oliver Schusser. "Customers will be able to benefit from a rich and user-friendly experience to watch their favorite Canal programs, as well as accessing Apple services, including the App Store and Apple Music."
Rumors of Apple's interest to market Apple TV as an over-the-top product have been circulating for nearly five years.
Reports claimed Apple was looking to strike deals with content owners, bypassing cable TV middlemen to offer customers reasonably priced streaming channel bundles. That strategy could change if Apple is able to reach distribution agreements with major pay-TV companies, an arrangement could position Apple TV as a replacement for millions of installed cable boxes.
Starting May 17, Canal+ customers in France will be able to rent Apple TV 4K for 6 euros per month ($7 per month), the same fee currently charged for cable TV set-top boxes.
Through an arrangement with Apple, Canal+ will directly distribute the Apple TV 4K streaming devices to customers, who can use the equipment to access their subscription channel lineups. Since Apple TV lacks coaxial cable support, subscribers will likely need to download the MyCanal app for full functionality.
In addition to cable TV content, users who opt for Apple TV benefit from access to Apple's tvOS App Store, Siri voice control and first party Apple apps including Apple Music.
Frank Cadoret, deputy manager of Canal+ France, touted the Apple partnership in a statement provided to Variety.
"Apple TV is the perfect showcase for our premium content exclusives, in particular cinema, sport and our original creations," Cadoret said.
For Apple, the Canal+ integration could be the first of many pay-TV deployments. The growing number of mobile apps from premium content providers legitimizes Apple TV as a direct cable box replacement, not an over-the-top alternative.
"We believe that Canal customers will love using the Apple TV 4K as a decoder," said Apple VP of Apple Music and international content Oliver Schusser. "Customers will be able to benefit from a rich and user-friendly experience to watch their favorite Canal programs, as well as accessing Apple services, including the App Store and Apple Music."
Rumors of Apple's interest to market Apple TV as an over-the-top product have been circulating for nearly five years.
Reports claimed Apple was looking to strike deals with content owners, bypassing cable TV middlemen to offer customers reasonably priced streaming channel bundles. That strategy could change if Apple is able to reach distribution agreements with major pay-TV companies, an arrangement could position Apple TV as a replacement for millions of installed cable boxes.
Comments
AT&T's DirecTV Now has offered the AppleTV for sometimes now and it is very good.
Bear in mind that under 25s now watch more Netflix content than BBC.
The last time I was quoted a replacement cost for a standard STB, it was around $500. Given that I could buy a couple of Apple TVs for that price at retail, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the ATV ends up being much cheaper for cable companies to deploy.
We tried going all-in on onDemand services but it's just not the same or anywhere near as quick. We ditched Sky Q for a mix of Amazon Prime, Netflix and TV Player subscriptions plus the free on demand services. Having to jump between the services and not having a true cross-platform search and library hindered things greatly. Both the Apple TV and Amazon's Fire devices will search across and show you whats on which service; search for Peppa Pig for example and it'll offer you season 1-4 on Netflix, 1-5 on Prime, 1-2 on Ketchapp (total guess btw) etc. etc. Having to jump between and launch new players each time is precious lost seconds that doesn't compare to opening your planner/recordings and pressing play on something. Also, those amalgamated search services are still in their infancy and struggle with the different naming schemes each provider uses; "S01" vs "Season 1", "Ben and Holly" vs "Ben & Holly" for example. Roku also has a search facility but it doesn't work IN-apps, only from the Roku homescreen which gives very limited results.
We still use onDemand primarily but I've hooked up a few Freesat receivers to the old sky dish to keep the family happy for now.
It used to be awful (for example it sometimes switched back to live when you skipped forward 10s while watching a delayed live channel) and is now acceptable.
It correctly switches my Apple TV to 50Hz (the framerate of TV in Europe) for live channels but not for on-demand content.
Canal+ clients usually receive its offers through their ISP boxes, or through a satellite receiver.
They launched an Over-The-Top offer and box 3 years ago. http://www.csimagazine.com/csi/CanalPlus-launches-OTT-box.php
I am pretty sure it is more efficient for them to provide an Apple TV with software they should develop anyway, than develop the hardware and software for their cutom OTT box.
My provider (Bell Canada), which provides an IPTV solution, provides an app that allows me to watch all the channels they offer, their on-demand content and even offers PVR functionality (the latter being in beta). So, with the right software any hardware can be you cable client. In France, Free.fr even allows you to use your PC for this.
Any company that demands you use their hardware exclusively, is very quickly going to look out of touch.
You are right that the only issue is recording, which in fact can be solved in software too, but the issue there is not software ( since recording can be set in an app) but the relatively paltry storage size of the AppleTV and the fact that the app itself will be sharing space with other apps. So you may be ok with the tenth and oldest episode of Poirot being deleted because of a new episode in an existing internet setup box, but in a shared environment it may be deleted because you downloaded some game, or the game didn't download and you needed to launch the TV app, or the specific vendor app to delete some episodic content manually.
People don't want to worry about memory management.
We we have chosen to use YouTube TV as our main source of local TV and other stations including over 60 stations and most sports stations. It costs $40/month all in and allow 3 simultaneous streams.
It it has a great interface with unlimited cloud DVR and is far superior to cable TV.
RIght now you can get an ATV 4K from Direct TV Now for $105 and you get 3 months of Direct TV Now for free, however it only allows 2 simultaneous streams and does not have the unlimited cloud DVR but it does have a good channel selection.