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Apple In Talks To Bring $0.99 TV Rentals To iTunes
An anonymous reader writes "On September first, Apple will reportedly announce a new iPod Touch with a front facing camera, a refreshed Apple TV, and more interestingly, the arrival of $0.99 TV episode rentals on iTunes."
$0.99 is way too much for a single episode rental. With the same price you can buy the whole season from store and get a physical product with extras too.
Why not a subscription based service like Spotify, but for TV episodes? I would gladly pay $10 a month if I could stream any tv show and episode I wanted to. I already do for Spotify and seriously, I haven't felt the need to get mp3's since I started using it because frankly, it's just so convenient and easy. Hell, you can even offer an ad-based service too. Just have it huge library, don't delete old episodes or shows and add the new episodes there right after or when they're showing on TV.
I don't care if people want to waste $1 per episode to watch TV.
What I will care about is when Apple starts to exclusively lock down certain shows making them impossible to get through other services like In Demand, Netflix, etc
All the shows? From all the carriers? They all asked for exactly 99 cents? Weird! It's almost like they all got together and colluded to keep the price high or something... nah.
TFA seems to have the date wrong, at least: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/25/apple_sends_out_invitations_for_sept_1_special_event.html
I don't understand why anyone would pay for TV, twice. Almost everyone (atleast in the developed countries) has a TV, and already pays for it. If you miss a show today, you can catch it in just a few hours at the earliest, and a few days at the latest. Most of it is reruns, anyway. If you want to watch something, transfer it before going somewhere. Why the hell would you pay for it again?
Its not the 7th, its the 1st of Setember :(
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/25/apple-to-hold-special-event-september-1st-well-be-there-li/
Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
I'm an apple customer -- we have quite a few macs, ipods, even two ipads -- but I won't watch TV for free, much less for .99/show. So let's not paint with too broad a brush, shall we?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
In the case of broadcast television...
A fool and his time are soon parted.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
$0.99 for as little as 20 minutes of TV? Talk about insane pricing. I can go to Redbox and pick up a 180 minute movie for $1 to occupy my time. Hell you can go to Hulu and watch a good majority of recent TV free. Netflix only costs $9/month and has lots of quality streaming TV available for the same price as 9 episodes (180 minutes) of iTunes.
To me this looks like its priced as into an very infrequent purchase to those without a DVR.
Here's a quote from something Jobs said, but with s/music/media/.
Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the media companies to sell their media DRM-free....Convincing them to license their media to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable media marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.
Like any big company, I think that Apple will run with a plan if it can make them money. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't have the power to get big media to distribute their content DRM-free. (And even if Apple could, would they bother?)
coding is life
Netflix, all the streaming you want(if you can tolerate the drm) for $10 and dvds in the mail. I will have watched all of dexter season 4 in 1 week. That means I paid about $5 for the whole shebang as I pay around $20 a month for my 3 disc plan. Thus that is the price I am willing to pay. At ~12 episodes that works out to ~$0.42, less than half what they are suggesting. Mind you this is a Showtime show, a normal cable show might be worth half of that.
Or you can sign up for the cheapest plan with netflix, and get all you can stream videos on the pc, xbox, and the ps3 (I believe the wii as well)
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/08/25/apple-media-event-scheduled-for-september-1st/ I'm not sure if I'd like the $.99 rentals, but the cheaper iTV sounds intriguing.
tv shows want to do this? they could go to hulu and make more money with advertising. The simpsons makes more money per views on hulu then TV.
TV shows are far more throw away them mp3s.
I'll watch Lost on hulu, but I sure as hell wouldn't pay 99 cents an episode.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm sure i'm the 100th person to say this, but with services like Hulu (for new episodes) and Netflix Streaming (for back seasons) this seems silly. I cut my cable off 2 years ago and still manage to watch any tv program I want. If it's streaming next day, I watch it there, the commercials don't bug me. If the network is too stubborn to stream it with commercials and risk a little revenue loss, I pirate it. It's all about ease for me. The networks need to wise up quick. I'd gladly pay discovery channel direct for on demand streaming access to there most recent shows, but I don't want to buy it as part of a package full of 100 channels i'm not interested in, and I don't want to have to bend my schedule around when they think the programs should air, and I know i'm not alone on this.
Everyday You see me is the worst day of my life -Office Space
Explain to me again why I should pay $0.99 to see something I can Tivo for free and watch on a much larger screen... Oh, that's right, so that I can watch it while I'm driving!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Actually I think it's a great move. Probably isn't going to attract anyone who wants a whole season of House, but as a mom, I've been stuck countless time in traffic, on a check-out line, or at the doctor's office with a bored cranky kid. At those times I'd gladly shell out a buck for an episode of something- ANYTHING- that will keep Junior entertained and quiet. They are probably also banking, quite literally, on the crowd that hasn't quite figured out that spending one dollar twenty times costs MORE than shelling out ten bucks. Pamhttp://www.talksocialnews.com
That works out to $22 for a 22 episode season, vs. over $30/season to buy box sets.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Prices go to $1.29 in a few months, just like songs.
but not for what they are giving you. give me the full 1080p, non-drm-ed version (that i can transcode down to whatever format i want) and we'll be about square. for an average 20-some episode season, that works out to be about what you'd pay when they first release it at retail.
...
Assuming 3 hours of TV time per day, I could watch about 90 hour-long TV episodes on Netflix for just $9/month. Apple wants me to pay 10x that? No thanks.
I currently buy 2-3 season passes per year for shows that I really like. It's cheaper then cable, and better then dealing with an unreliable DVR that records commercials and sometimes clips the beginning / end of episodes. Rentals are a lot nicer because most shows I get I only watch once. I'm also less concerned about DRM when content is disposable as opposed to something that I own.
No, I will not work for your startup
I mean... If it's worth watching it will turn up on torrents anyway, right?
Even sooner if it isn't.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I was about to RTFA; but got to the word "Antennagate" and closed the tab out of disgust.
unless you solely get your internet without any expense almost all people pay their isp. oh you say that is different. well im largely playing devils advocate (even against my own stance, the last software i purchased was a sierra adventure game, and only cause i couldnt copy it, and that would have required 10 discs and time too)
so most people do 'pay $0.99 to have use of a few 1s and 0s for a while' through their isp. it is simple that any connected company is going to want to try to see your 'business' too. by coercing you in any way.
I like Netflix, but I find their streaming quality to be quite poor, despite having a fast network connection. Have tried on multiple computers through the web browser, as well as on an LG blu-ray player with Netflix support, and have also tried at a friend's house on her computer via FIOS. Quality varies, but at best (which is rare) it's ok; it's never what I consider great, and many times it's horrible, pretty much unwatchable in my opinion. (Specifically, quite noticeable blocking in large areas of similar colors, and that's even when the picture is reasonably good.) In addition, it's not uncommon for Netflix to pause to lower (or raise) the quality level, which is hugely frustrating (unless it's finally stepping up from a really low quality).
By contrast, I often rent movies on my Apple TV, it generally takes about 20-30 seconds before it's buffered enough to let me start watching, it _never_ pauses during playback, and the quality is quite good in my opinion; certainly worlds better than Netflix. (Disclaimer: I almost always rent standard-def, because usually I'm quite happy with the quality of Apple's standard def (42" TV) and the "high" def from Apple isn't enough better as to be worth the extra buck per rental.) I don't know _why_ Netflix's streaming quality is so much worse, but it sure is.
Didn't people used to say that 99 cents was the sweet spot where they pay? Grow a pair and admit that you will never pay instead of just dropping the price that you will (theoretically) pay. Fire up uTorrent and STFU.
Surely delivery of the TV is not included for $0.99? Wadayamean RTFA???
I like this "Even more interesting, though, are reports that Apple is looking to revamp its offerings on iTunes with the addition of TV rentals. "
Uhm, no... I don't like to pay money and get to keep nothing. Also, this has been out from a number of companies for a while. Apple adding it doesn't change the landscape much. I can rent DVDs too, by mail. (Also, it won't matter much here, since Apple has almost no TV shows available in iTunes Japan)
No, I have to say the actual news of new hardware is much more interesting than news about some silly contract Apple has with the TV networks.
The article fails to mention anything about the annoying problem that all of these services (iTunes included) don't allow those of us outside the U.S. to view any of these shows. Stupid exclusive deals for possible future foreign releases prevent worldwide distribution and force many expats to turn to bit torrents.
If it's greed that drives the producers (and copyright holders), I do hope that they someday realize that they can earn more by allowing people outside of the U.S. timely access to their shows through legitimate channels (like iTunes, Hulu, etc.) than through exclusive tie-ups with other dinosaur companies that think the same way they do.
I pay about $100 a month for digital TV plus DVR service. I rarely watch TV - there are a couple shows I make a point to watch, the rest of my TV viewing is usually food network, discovery, or history channel while I'm multi-tasking and hour or so before going to sleep. I could probably spend less than $10 a month on TV show rentals and I wouldn't really miss cable TV that much.
The advantage to renting over buying is that a rented episode only takes up space on your hard drive for a short time. This isn't a major advantage as you could always delete the purchased episode after you're done with it. However for something like TV or Movies where you're most likely going to watch them once and only once (with some exceptions) being able to rent the episode at half the price of purchasing the episode (.99 is about half of the 1.99 iTunes charges for an episode of a tv show) can be an attractive option.
Apple made inroads in music because they did these things:
1. They allowed you thousands of songs in your pocket. What you want, when you want it.
2. They made it easy to find those songs (iTunes).
3. They got rid of commercials, DJs, etc.
4. They augmented music with other forms of media (Podcasts, Audiobooks).
5. You could take your existing CDs and rip them, thus ditching physical media altogether.
TV is entirely different because of these things:
1. TV already has a TV guide, so it's fairly easy to find what you want (I'm talking online TV guide, not the printed version).
2. People typically don't care about carrying TV shows around in their pockets (except for travelers).
3. People are OK with TV commercials -- in fact it's an art form, like during the Superbowl.
4. People don't necessarily want to "own" TV shows -- they watch them once, except for their all-time favorites.
5. Why rip a DVD that you own? That's still a very data-dense storage medium to this day.
6. They already have on-demand TV, which is just like iTunes rentals.
So the cable subscription model doesn't seem like it's going anywhere anytime soon. For that to happen, we need to see these things:
A. Network identities need to be torn down. Who cares if a show was produced by NBC, SyFy, FOX, or BET? The content should stand on its own, period.
B. Targeted marketing needs to improve. Right now, if you hit the 7pm-10pm slot on FOX, you pretty much know your demographic. Once shows are downloaded willy-nilly, the (optional) ads will need to be targeted. This could be a big win for everyone, and we're getting there.
C. How can studios push their "New fall lineup"? This is crucial, because a show lives and dies based on how it is positioned against other shows right now.
Just some thoughts.... Many more things would need to change, but these are off the top of my head.