You just basically described what i do :.) Impressive.
Gene Muster on TV today still claiming Apple will release an actual TV in 2013. Doesn't he ever get tired of saying this?
Apple left a rather large hole in their release schedule when they moved iPads to Fall (assuming they keep a yearly release cycle from here on out).
Old Schedule:
Spring: iPads
Summer: Macs
Fall: iPhone
New Schedule:
Spring: ?
Summer: OS X & Devices
Fall: iOS & Devices
Given the current state of product updates, what are they going to release in the Spring?
<Queue rampant speculation>
Not at all. I hate the current arrangement...
Coast to coast fiber to the home? I don't know about that. Think they're still busy trying to suppress municipal roll-your-own networks. They are seriously dog-in-manger on this stuff. They don't want to make the capital investment but they don't want anyone else to lose patience and step into the breach. It's exasperating.
Apple could revolutionize the TV industry by making shows ala carte, at reasonable prices.
Part of that being that the content would be available in one place. Netflix should already be doing this, they are going to be crushed if they don't act.
But as HobeSoundDarryl has so eloquently and logically noted, the studio, the network and/or the cable/satellite service provider has to take an "unreasonable" price cut to provide the consumer a "reasonable" price. And none of them seem to be willing to do so.
Apple could certainly draw billions from their bank account on an annual basis to pay the studios/networks/ISPs to let them stream the content, but unless they could sell it to consumers at a price that at least breaks-even (which would likely mean an increase in the cost of the hardware to recover margins), investors won't accept such a deal for too many years. And if Apple is forced to cancel the project after 2-3 years, not only does it reflect poorly on Apple (and it's stock price), but it also would return us to the current status quo and significantly retrench that position.
Netflix took advantage of the fact that the studios, the networks and the cable/satellite service providers didn't understand how valuable their content was so they signed deals very favorable to Netflix.
Take Starz - the original deal with Netflix was $6 million a year. After five years, it expired and it's been said that Stars wanted $200 million a year. Once those entities realized they'd left a significant amount of money on the table, when it came time to renegotiate those deals, they demanded "fair market value" and Netflix was either forced to drop content (losing Starz cost them some 3500 titles - many of them very popular) or raise prices to pay or the new contracts (which they did to massive customer discontent).
The old dinosaurs that run the cable companies are running scared. They need to get slapped into the 21st century opportunities for consuming this kind of content. Hopefully Apple can do it. I cut the cord a while ago until someone figures it out.
If they're running scared, Apple is the grim reaper. To them it's proven science that the music industry lost a huge amount of profit due to the popularity of iTunes. They don't care to understand the nuances - that 50% of their previous profits is better than EVERYBODY stealing their content and them making bupkis.
My fear is that could turn television into a very narrow media catering only to shows that have strongest followings.
iTunes' real disruptive impact on music sales was in the area of albums.
Before iTunes, if you liked a song you had to buy the album of it (Europe did have "EP CDs" with multiple mixes of popular songs, but those still were priced around half of what the CD album cost).
iTunes allowed you to buy the one song you liked and you only had to pay 1/xth the cost of the album since all tracks were the same price. Studios could not charge $5 for the most popular song and then $0.50 for the other 10 tracks.
However, for a studio the costs to master and distribute a single song are not too much more than mastering a dozen songs. And by offering more songs they hoped to have, if not more hits, at least more reason for consumers to buy the next album because the consumer might feel that there was more than one song they liked and therefore felt they received better value for the higher price.
But with iTunes, you buy the one song you like and you don't have to take a risk on spending more money in the hope there are more songs you will like. So the studio makes less money and they worry that unless the artist has another hit with their next album, they won't recover the costs of making the album. So they become more conservative in what they will back and this is why all Top 40 songs sound the same - only what the studios know will sell is allowed to be sold.
Every television channel company wants to have a big hit because they can leverage consumer demand for that hit to force the cable and satellite providers to carry their channel. And once they are carried, they have a new audience to throw other programs against with the hope some of them will stick (and generate advertising revenue). Think of the collection of shows on a channel like AMC or Food Network as a "video album".
If iTunes allowed the same level of disruption for television distribution that it did for music distribution (and that is what many want to happen), then AMC will be able to sell The Walking Dead, but perhaps not The Killing. And Food Network could sell Giada at Home, but not The Barefoot Contessa.
My fear is that could turn television into a very narrow media catering only to shows that have strongest followings.
I love The Universe on The History Channel, but could care less about Ice Road Truckers. But I'm scared that IRT is far more popular than TU and therefore in this new model my show would be cancelled. Or the popularity of IRT means each episode is $.50 and the lack of popularity of TU means each episode is $5.00.
The hedge funds tanked the stock enough now they can reap the rewards with this information they are leaking out.
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What's interesting is this. Most people know that new TVs usually come out in Fed/March..and that your best deals come in January or Feb...right before the refresh.
So yes, maybe this is what Apple is planning.