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Apple's Plan For Its New TV Service: Sell Other People's TV Services (recode.net)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Recode: After years of circling the TV business, Apple is finally ready to make its big splash: On Monday it will unveil its new video strategy, along with some of the new big-budget TV shows it is funding itself. One thing Apple won't do is unveil a serious competitor to Netflix, Hulu, Disney, or any other entertainment giant trying to sell streaming video subscriptions to consumers. Instead, Apple's main focus -- at least for now -- will be helping other people sell streaming video subscriptions and taking a cut of the transaction. Apple may also sell its own shows, at least as part of a bundle of other services. But for now, Apple's original shows and movies should be considered very expensive giveaways, not the core product.
All of this might very well work. Apple has an installed base of 1.4 billion users, and some of them will buy the things Apple promotes: Look at the success of Apple Music, which launched seven years after Spotify but quickly amassed 50 million subscribers due to a free trial period and prominent real estate on Apple's devices. Another reason this could work: Amazon has already been very successful with its own version of the same idea. Facebook is also bullish on selling TV subscriptions and is pushing would-be partners to sign up so it can launch later this spring or summer, according to industry sources. Similarly, Comcast (which is a minority investor in Vox Media, which owns this site) is rolling out Flex, a $5-a-month service that gives you a bunch of free content (some of which you can also get other places) and the ability to easily buy HBO, Showtime, etc. Instead of offering exclusive content, Comcast is offering subscribers a Roku-like streaming box. According to people who've talked to Apple about its plans, Apple's new TV service will consist of selling TV subscription apps surrounded by millions of other apps in its main app store. "Apple plans on making a new storefront that's much more prominent for those who use Apple TV boxes and other Apple hardware," reports Recode. "It will also be able to offer its own bundles -- for instance, it could offer a package of HBO, Showtime, and Starz at a price that's lower than you'd pay for each pay TV service on its own."
All of this might very well work. Apple has an installed base of 1.4 billion users, and some of them will buy the things Apple promotes: Look at the success of Apple Music, which launched seven years after Spotify but quickly amassed 50 million subscribers due to a free trial period and prominent real estate on Apple's devices. Another reason this could work: Amazon has already been very successful with its own version of the same idea. Facebook is also bullish on selling TV subscriptions and is pushing would-be partners to sign up so it can launch later this spring or summer, according to industry sources. Similarly, Comcast (which is a minority investor in Vox Media, which owns this site) is rolling out Flex, a $5-a-month service that gives you a bunch of free content (some of which you can also get other places) and the ability to easily buy HBO, Showtime, etc. Instead of offering exclusive content, Comcast is offering subscribers a Roku-like streaming box. According to people who've talked to Apple about its plans, Apple's new TV service will consist of selling TV subscription apps surrounded by millions of other apps in its main app store. "Apple plans on making a new storefront that's much more prominent for those who use Apple TV boxes and other Apple hardware," reports Recode. "It will also be able to offer its own bundles -- for instance, it could offer a package of HBO, Showtime, and Starz at a price that's lower than you'd pay for each pay TV service on its own."
Plenty of us donâ(TM)t give two shits about recording, archiving or collecting anything. We just want to watch something. If it is convenient to watch, we will watch. If it is too inconvenient, oh well! It is not the end of the world. We will find something else to do.
Personal example. We do not have cable TV. We donâ(TM)t regularly subscribe to any viewing alternatives either. We do have Amazon Prime, which has video as a bonus, but it is not why we have Prime and we would have Prime even if it didnâ(TM)t have video. If we want to watch something that is not free on Prime, we will rent it from whomever.
However, we did pay $15 for a month of HBO Go. We watched what we wanted to watch and cancelled the subscription. That was in November. We will get it again for another month in April.
Number of things I have recorded since the VCR went out of style: 0
Number of things I wanted to record: 0
Just donâ(TM)t care. I canâ(TM)t be the only one.
Apple has a captive audience: It gives them the apex of rent-seeking behaviour.
How do you figure? You can get any of those other services without going through Apple and Apple has no way to prevent you from doing so.
Well, think of all the services out there - it literally is a A La Carte menu of channels. Just you now have to manage a dozen subscriptions and services and logins and passwords and incompatibilities.
Perhaps you're subscribed to Hulu and Disney and YouTube TV. You want CBS and you need to subscribe to CBS' online service. The sheer number of services makes it hard to navigate.and use.
Apple can certainly aggregate all this into a simple interface to make it easier to subscribe, view and unsubcribe.
Apple has a captive audience: It gives them the apex of rent-seeking behaviour.
Not with iTunes it doesn't, it runs on Windows too and releasing a iTunes for Android/Linux would not be a bad idea either. That being said, providing a single access point with a single subscription for multiple TV services seems like a pretty convenient service to me. I for one am not going to subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, Diseney, HBO, YouTube, ... the list goes on, and on, and on ... all individually, I'm going to subscribe to a subset at best. However, if somebody offered me a service that fuses all of them and allows me to watch bits and pieces from any service on demand I'd be willing to pay a subscription for that is considerably higher than I'd be willing to pay Netflix, Hulu, Diseney, HBO, YouTube, ... individually. I'd even be interested in 'packages' If I could pick my package together in something resembling à la carte fashion and could stream already premiered TV show episodes from those channels on demand. Since they are not competing with these guys but offering them an opportunity to earn extra money by giving them easier access to Apple's install base this could actually work pretty well.
If they can do it and give a better price than buying them all separately... and I mean a REALLY GOOD price discount, maybe.
Can I literally pick only the stations/streams that I want to pay for, and not a bundle that includes 30 things I don't give a mosquitos fart about?
Last question: Will they refuse to put ads in to raise the revenue stream?
If all 3 are a yes, I'm interested in at least seeing what the pricing is.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
If they can produce a working and interactive aggregated guide for the "live streaming" services then they will have a winner. Amazon Fire TV does this to an extent with the "channel" or services you can buy through your Prime Video account, including any other the air channels you're streaming via a Recast.
Most "streamers" need to subscribe to more than one service to get the channels they want to watch. Having one guide that covers whatever services you add is desired by a lot of people.
This is exactly what Apple TV does now, it aggregates content. This is the entire function of the "TV" App on Apple TV. It coordinates services and presents a 'unified' search across them..
Good-bye