Apple's Cable Plans Gets Disney, CBS Support
It's been a while since we heard anything about Apple's supposed plans to enter the cable TV business. Today a report in the Wall Street Journal revived all the old rumors, adding that CBS and ABC are supporting the project.
The Wall Street Journal cites "people familiar with the matter" that say Apple's iTunes TV service will offer access to some TV shows from a selection of major U.S. television networks for a monthly fee. These sources also said that Apple had garnered the support of CBS and Disney, which owns ABC.
The report goes on to say that while CBS is on board and Disney plans to make ABC, ABC Family and the Disney Channel shows available to subscribers, other networks aren't so keen to jump head first into a deal. News Corp, which owns Fox, and Turner Broadcasting, which owns CNN and TNT, were reportedly more wary of the idea.
Would you ditch your cable company for a subscription service to an iTunes TV sort of affair? Let us know in the comments below!
Read the full story here.
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This sounds like it could potentially be more costly than the current packaged programming.
Oh, this is good. Soon, like AT&T, ISP's will start demanding its customers to stop streaming videos and stop downloading large files, etc.
nice job on not fixing/remo\/ing the broken/trashy ad's toms!
It's Apple so No. The brand alone would prevent me from entertaining the idea. Apple only produces solution where there is no real need. In other words they are just a money sink in the game of life. The prey on people with the itard disease, very sad.
The only reason I still have cable tv is Netflix does not have all the support it needs to destroy these money grubbin cable companies.
as long as its in hd and not raping my wallet like directv does i'll gladly switch. between a cable box, satellite, installation, hd access, and more cable boxes, its just a bitch to keep these cable/satellite providers. especially when I only keep 40 channels in my lineup. who owns the history, discovery, food and national geo channels? itunes needs those.
I don't have any subscription to cable and will never need any.
I don't watch TV but even if I did I would never, not ever, do it via Apple ianything. I stopped wasting my time watching idiotic and mindless "reality" shows that are anything but, and all the other crap they were showing. And paying Apple for mindlessly wasting my time would totally add injury to insult.
I don't have cable so yes, as long as the price is reasonable I would pay for this.
as long as its in hd and not raping my wallet like directv does i'll gladly switch. between a cable box, satellite, installation, hd access, and more cable boxes, its just a bitch to keep these cable/satellite providers. especially when I only keep 40 channels in my lineup. who owns the history, discovery, food and national geo channels? itunes needs those.
Disney owns the History channel along with A&E, Lifetime and Biography.
Discovery owns their own network of stations.
Discovery Channel
TLC
Animal Planet
Discovery Health Channel
Except they will most likely make you have Apple TVs if you want this on an actual TV and not your computer, meaning more Apple-only shit you have to buy. No thanks
Can't imagne to many comcast customers with the 250 GB cap will subscribe
AH! HELL NO!
Nope!! I use an antena for local TV and Hulu for the reruns of FX, TNT, Scyfy, USA shows, then purchase DVD of those I like and HBO, SHO shows. Cable costs are out of this world for sticking a bunch of channels you do not want with a bunch of commercials of products I am not interested in.
iTunes Sports? I could watch it after the results were available on-line.....whee.
I can't imagine what the Apple tax on this service would be. Apple is not known for reasonable pricing of mediocre products and services.
I would like a TV service that allows me to individually choose the channels I want and offer them in HD without DRM
Amen ravewulf.. out of 600+ channels and 100 or so music chanels... I watch MAYBE 10 whdh 7, discovery,syfy ( stupid name change) history, tbs boomerang for the kids and disney for the kids. oh and mytv
huh??? Run that one by me one more time...
no thanks i try to stay way from itunes as much i can can. and when i do need to use it i install it in a virtual machine so it doesn't pollute my PC with useless crap. itunes is nothing but a virus like norton antivirus
I like the idea of a subscription service that allows you to keep the content, even if you end the service. Apple will gain more support, they usually do- just look at how slowly their video content came along but now it is booming with thousands of selections.
Seeing as I've already supplanted my cable service with Hulu, Apple has to make this a good deal to win any customer support. HD has to be standard- and I'm talking real HD, not iTunes' higher quality version which still shows how poorly compressed it is. I'd also like to have a number of networks included in some type of bundle, instead of an ala carte plan with a high price per network.
I guess Apple's main rival will be Hulu once they offer their paid version sooner than later. The race is on!
I get all that programming via DirectTV plus all of the sports programming, which is the only real reason I get DirectTV. The sports programming is the big nut to crack to break the cable/satellite providers.
I'd gladly switch if I could get something better, faster, and/or cheaper. Ideally, I'd like an a la carte menu where I can pick only the programming I want -- like iTunes -- only in portable, industry standard formats and without onerous DRM.
Mabye.. mabye not.
more than likely not - I have cable internet with no TV subscription. Unless they can offer a BETTER selection than Netflix and mabye for a cheaper price, I'll stick with what I have.