Slashdot Mirror
Apple Reportedly Working On an Online TV Service
An anonymous reader writes: According to a Wall Street Journal report (paywalled) Apple is in negotiations with media companies to develop an online TV service. The service will include a bundle of roughly 25 channels, so less popular channels will have a very difficult time fighting for a spot. Most major networks should be present, although NBC's participation is dubious because of its ties to Comcast, which would be in direct competition with Apple's service. "If Apple can offer a comprehensive, albeit slimmed-down, bundle for $30 to $40 a month, that could force distributors to cut prices or eat into margins to retain subscribers. At Comcast, for example, average video revenue per user should be about $79.45 in 2015, according to UBS. Meanwhile, its programming costs per average subscriber should be about $39.60. Those costs may need to rise. That roughly 50% gross margin looks vulnerable."
The idea of streaming may have been around for years, but the implementation sucks donkeys. I live in a rural area where I get my big-city broadcast channels through a major nationwide cable provider. If I miss an episode of something on broadcast, I can sometimes catch it after the next day or two on streaming, except when it's on one of the networks where I have to wait 8 days for no particular reason, meaning that before I can see my missed episode I have to wait until the day after next week's episode, or when it's on "verify my provider" and my cable company is never one of the six or eight you can choose from. That's if I'm lucky, of course, for some programs are just not available on streaming at all. For non-br0adcast channels that are carried by my cable company, I should be able to stream catchup episodes by logging in with my provider, right? So why is there still only a tiny list of verifiable providers that seldom includes my own?
What Apple can bring to a mess like this is a markedly better user interface. Because I pay for cable programming with transmission fees, and for OTA content wit commercials and retransmission fees, I have every right to view the content after scheduled broadcast. That's why I torrent everything they won't give me my rightful open access to. What I would like to see Apple do is just buy a vertical slice of about a third of Hollywood and force a unified access paradigm onto it. Make it easy to get BS-free access to the corresponding slice of total content, and viewers will find it so much easier to watch their chosen content that the rest of the industry will have to fall into line.