Would you pay $30 a month to watch TV via iTunes?
That’s the pitch Apple has been making to TV networks in recent weeks. The company is trying to round up support for a monthly subscription service that would deliver TV programs via its multimedia software, multiple sources tell me.
Apple (AAPL) isn’t tying the proposed service to a specific piece of hardware, like its underwhelming Apple TV box, or its long-rumored tablet/slate device. Instead, it is presenting the offer as an extension of its iTunes software, which already has a huge installed base: A year ago, Apple said it had 65 million iTunes customer accounts.
The big snag here (besides not so little things like, "hey, there aren't any new episodes of The Big Bang Theory!") is, as Kafka notes, the potential threat to cable networks carriage fees from cable and satellite companies. For now, carriage fees are, if not the proverbial golden goose, at least a few golden eggs. Either way, I can't see cable or broadcast networks (who are now trying to get their fare share of carriage fees) doing anything to compromise carriage fees any time soon.
On the surface, $30 a month sounds not unreasonable. The unreasonable part comes in the form of iTunes. If I were to pay $30 a month, I’d expect to be able to use my own choice of software to download and view it, not be tied to Apple’s crappy software.
Of course, the chances of Apple (or broadcasters) allowing that to happen are about the same as the Earth suddenly flying through the sun.
I would as long as the network content is there.
not as long as Hulu is around.
If you want to view an iTunes video on your computer, you easily can whatever software you wish. It’s only if you want to watch it on an external player that it becomes more difficult.
This is certainly cheaper than cable, but I’m not sure if it’s cheap enough that it would be worth it to me, considering how few cable shows I actually watch that show up on iTunes in a timely fashion. Showtime and HBO shows only seem to show up when the DVD is released.
No.
One can safely assume that Apple’s products and services are all grossly overpriced. However, the company has a huge number of deep-pocketed cult followers, whose only goal in life is to keep the evil enterprise viable.
I wouldn’t since I have cable and the capability to record. It would be easier for those who don’t watch traditional TV but download shows. Would that be unlimited downloads for $30 a month? Would it be time specific? As in you have three days to watch a download? Would it be times watched specific? As in watch it once through and it would go away and you can’t watch it again? System requirements?
There seem to be a lot more questions than just cable involvement if you are going to commit 30 bucks.
No.
There are situations where one is not near a TV nor PC w/internet and would like entertainment. Personally, I like catching up on TV shows at the gym, waiting at the airport, or on long flights. Apple has touched on a niche that may appeal to some.
If you could ditch your cable and not have to deal with ITunes software which I am not a big fan of I would consider it.
One big consideration would be bandwidth and that fact that the High Speed providers in Canada are starting to talk about putting caps on bandwidth usage each month and then charging over those caps.
Take me who has a News Network running about 12 hours a day on TV before prime time, what is that going to do to my monthly quota?
Then there is the question of local programming which I guess you would have get over the air.
The quality of the TV stuff I currently stream off of the internet is not that great so this would have to be improved.
Still it has some potential merits that could be considered.
No way. I can watch everything I like on regular TV!
@Julia
You still need iTunes to download the videos, and manage them, and for me that’s a deal breaker.
$30 a month? With all those Apple & iBloat restrictions?
I’ll stick to my free, HD torrents…thanks.
Apple is a corporation. Comcast is evil. You have other choices if you don’t want to buy from Apple. You do NOT have a choice if you want (or need because of geography) cable. People bitch about Apple – but the cable companies have monopolies and are abusive; with the lack of service (lack? I mean “no” service), and high no-option pricing.
Come on – the smallest package is $65 just to get the first 50 channels – and over half of those are public access, or foreign language channels. There are no “premium” channels – unless you count CNN (they list it as a premium). So if Apple offers anything close (I bet it will offer more of what I want to see) – why wouldn’t I save the money?
I see someone said “torrents.” It would be interesting to see how many people on this site know what torrents and p2p are – and if they use it ….
Kay, on this site, the use, or at least knowledge, of torrents or other forms of downloading is almost certainly much higher than average.
I wouldn’t. $30 is no cheaper than cable TV, and may actually be very expensive if all you get is broadcast TV.
iTune, the software, is a piece of #$%#@. iTune is Apple’s testament that they don’t value cloud computing. Aside from that, I doubt that Apple will get much cooperation from the broadcast networks, the subscription TV companies. And Apple is heavily tied to Disney, which owns ABC.
iTunes is really the tail for the dog, iPhone. The wedge product that can get the mobile internet TV viewing into the big time is sports programs. That’s one type of program that needs to be viewed live. Since Apple is very chummy with Disney, they should work on getting the ESPN shows onto the iPhone.
One of the key reasons for Comcast wanting to buy NBC Universal is NBC’s terrific sports division. That’s a segment of NBC that is regularly fattened with staff and equipments from their Olympics broadcasting. Comcast should work on getting the NBC sports program for viewing by cellphones. How many guys would kill for that.
I agree with some of the others here. The issue isn’t a $30 monthly fee, it’s iTunes itself. The software is a clunky, invasive mess.
No since I record shows I’m dedicated to via WIN-TV to my computer and then burn my own DVDs and archive them for my own use (cutting out all commercials). I then play them on the TV set using a DVD Player. If I want to watch the episode again I just play the DVD. If I don’t make my own, then I either buy the DVDs when they are released or rent them from Netflix. I seriously doubt that all of the TV shows that I may watch (not necessarily archive) are ever going to be available on iTunes. I currently am not a member of iTunes. I have a PC not a Mac and I have no intentions of getting a Mac. I also don’t care about watching any sports programs.
No
No, $30 is too high, especially if they are not streaming the content, making me download it and the increased cost of HD capacity to do so.
When I went away from cable and satellite TV to IP based, I initially used ITunes, and now have over 3TB of music/video, with the associated costs of Hard drive, redundancy and backups to keep the content I bought.
As thing progressed with streaming technology however I no longer need to and my cost is roughly $8.00/mo, and more and more I am seeing streaming HD.
I think within 10 years all content will be available online streamed and there will be no need for local storage of music and video. Now to get Hulu, megavideo, or heck even apple to start building vast data centers to bring us what we want, when we want, at a cheap cost, which sound probably sit around 10/Month with advertisements, as these company’s do not have the running costs associated with cable or satellite.