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A&E, History Channel, and Lifetime Channels Added to Apple TV
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Could it be that Amazon and Apple are competitors and Amazon may not wish to give Apple the time of day, much less the rights to access the Amazon library?
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I'll grant you that but it goes the other way too. On those 190 channels "I" never watch are commercials paid for by OPM (other people's money) that "I" never see. It's HUGE money for this model. The dreamers want to kill off those "crap" channels rather than just configure their channel guides to only show them the channels they do want to watch. The latter allows that OPM to keep doing its thing. Strip it and that money needs to be made up. Where does that replacement cash come from in this new model: A) Apple, B) Cable/Broadband Provider, C) Studios or D) Us consumers?
So, even if we could get the masses to give up on the expense of sports "we" don't watch, we also lose the OPM that pays for a whole lot of the machinery. Since not all of "we" will give up on sports, those costs still need to be made up in some new model. And if that new model kills the OPM subsidy, those monies need to be made up too. It won't be A, B or C covering either.
With most paid tv contracts having more than one box or "home DVR" is usually an extra monthly charge.
With the Apple TV I can:
- add premium content to a secondary tv without a cable box
- access previously aired content (hbogo is the best) using a better UI than any cable box
- take this content with me on vacation
But, Amazon Prime is on iOS devices, you just have to go thru the head-ache of airplay (e.g. just an inconvenience to the end-user). I kind of assumed it was Apple being the road-block in terms of an Amazon Prime app, just don't know why, they allow Netflix, Hulu, etc.. They are competitors in the streaming content market.
It's mostly just because it is a low priority for both parties. It may or may not get added eventually, but we won't know until they add it.
I'm just anticipating having an app store for ATV. sigh...
I wish these channels would sell me access instead of requiring a cable subscription. I'd gladly pay $2-3/month each for the small amount of channels I watch. Maybe more for premium channels like HBO. Hell... if HBO could get $5.99/mo from 10 million subs. (Doable. Netflix has 44 million), That would almost $60 mill per month in revenue.
For perspective, HBO generated nearly $5 billion in revenue and almost $2 billion in profit in 2013. Selling direct to consumer would radically devalue HBO in the eyes of cable/sat companies which means consumers would have to pay a lot more than $6/mo for HBO GO. HBO isn't going to take on additional risk unless it's nearly ironclad that they'll make substantially more income by doing so.
No, just no. I'm used to this UI and Apple doesn't have a good history of designing new UI's lately. If it's too cluttered for you just hide the stations you don't watch. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
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Not to mention a lot of people don't like to be nickel and dimmed to death. And even if you only watch 10 Channels. The cost of basic cable (if your channels are part of that package) is a far better deal than this mythical wonderful world where you can purchase channels ala-cart. Do you really think ala-cart programming would cost less than $10 per channel? I have a bridge to sell you if you think that.
Again, I have DirecTV. I still use my Apple TV for most non-sports content using Netflix, Amazon Prime (Airplayed via my iPad), and Apple Rentals.
Just because it doesn't fit into the way you live your life doesn't mean it isn't useful.
You're right that a la carte channel subscriptions would be a game changer... But I'm not sure whether or not most people would prefer it.
Part of me thinks yes... I could subscribe to ESPN, NFL Network, and individual teams (say, the Seattle Mariners) or local markets (instead of Mariners, Fox Sports NW), along with HBO, ABC/CBS/NBC, and maybe Comedy Central and TBS.
However, part of me thinks... Holy hell, that's complicated. And if each channel was $10, I'm already up to the cost of cable with those 8-9 channels. Not to mention that I don't get the benefit of discovering new channels and shows as easily. I probably wouldn't pay to subscribe to HGTV, MTV, VH1, Disney, etc., but I might watch a show on them once or twice a month. So even if I do save money, it would have to be enough to make up for the fact that I'm no longer able to watch channels I don't subscribe to.
I think a BIGGER game changer would be robust and instant on-demand for the entirety of a channel's programming. Sunday night at 8pm on the dot Game of Thrones goes live in the HBO app/channel, for example. I personally don't mind sitting through commercials to watch the show right away rather than later that week, so they could keep the integrated commercials for first-run shows... Maybe even for an entire year, until the next season started.
I'm just rambling now, but I think there are a LOT of ways that TV could develop to be a more enjoyable experience. While a la carte subscriptions are often touted as THE way to change the game, there are several other directions Apple could take it.
Good stats. $5 billion in annual revenue would be just over $400 million per month. 41 million subscribers (Is that current?) puts revenue per subscriber at around $10.
Currently $16.99 or so to add HBO to cable lineup. Seems like a reasonable price. Assuming 30%, Apple would get a smaller cut than the cable companies currently get.
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Of course, with HBO specifically, it already is purchased sort of a la carte. (Bundled with other HBO channels.)
According to this WSJ article, Netflix has almost 32 million paying U.S. subscribers and HBO has about about 29 million U.S. subscribers. Of the $16 HBO 'add on' fee half goes to the cable/sat provider and half goes to HBO. The $8 HBO gets is on par with the $8 Netflix charges for streaming (though a Netflix price hike is rumored) but, and this is a big but, HBO has less overhead than Netflix and if HBO offers a direct to consumer option there is no way in hell their deal with cable/sat companies stays the same. HBO is immediately looking at a drop in revenue and an increase in operating costs that it *hopes* will be negated by tons of people signing up for HBO GO that aren't already HBO customers.
It's a gamble and one I don't see them making until there are legions of cord cutters willing to pony up the cash to make it worth HBO's while. Keep in mind HBO, like all companies, is looking for ways to make more money. Not the same amount of money. Not less money. More money.
Can't see the article. According to HBO's website, they have 41 million subscribers in the US and offer "HBO Services" to another 35 million outside the US.
EDIT: It looks like the 41 million includes Cinemax subscribers.
I don't see where the gamble is. Same price for consumers. More money for HBO. Where's the risk?
Good job finding a Harmony model from 2005 that has long been discontinued by Logitech.
This is more along the lines of their current offerings. And they're glorious.
And vice versa...you think Apple would want to help out Amazon by putting their business on AppleTV? They allow you to airplay it through the iOS app.
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Weird about the link. It's covered for me too now even though I was just reading the whole thing.
It's risky for HBO because the cut they get from cable/sat providers will go down even though their number of subscribers via cable/sat will probably stay pretty much the same. Cable/sat providers currently handle customer service, billing, etc., for HBO as well help cover HBO's advertising costs. All of those new costs (plus building out their streaming infrastructure as currently it's not very robust) will eat in to HBO's bottom line. The direct to consumer move has to cover these new costs, cover the lost revenue from cable/sat providers *and* make HBO more profit than the previous business model. Not to mention the demographic we are talking about (people that want HBO but currently do not have a cable/sat subscription) is really, really small right now.
There's no point in making a disruptive move like this if it's not going to boost revenue and profits.
I agree, mostly. In a perfect world, all devices would nix the IR from 1950 and move to WiFi connections, and we would have a rich vocabulary for remotes, and something like Harmony would use that. But, since devices are still stuck in the mid-20th-century state of the art for communications, the Harmony dealing with that is the next best.
On the other hand, if the Harmony would interact with the AppleTV and other verbose-command-set devices similar to the single-purpose Remote apps, that would be a huge improvement. Then I could set up buttons not just to put me into the AppleTV-controlling scenario, but get into a specific TV show's unwatched eps, or put me into a playlist, etc.
I think the future, frankly, is an iPhone app where this interaction is done, and little or no onscreen feedback. For the old IR-based devices, clunky IR blasters or total ostracization. I think Harmony is working along these lines too but last I saw they were still in the old "get you to a point to interact with the TV" model instead of a "control the TV using the screen in my hand".
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First, no the average cable+internet bill is $160/month. Approximately $100/month is attributable to cable alone.
Secondly, Hulu generally has more episodes than on on-demand cable, especially if you pay $8/month for Hulu Plus. Not to be a shill for Hulu, but they have a hell of a lot of content, all available on demand; our kids' friends often come over to our house to watch TV, and we haven't had cable in five and a half years.
Interesting strawman, but the idea of cutting out the cable company isn't to add additional layers, but to cut out the most fossilized layer from the mix, and to reduce bundling inefficiencies.
Example, the majority of your cable bill goes to fund sports programming. That's great for the megafans who get all sorts of overpaid athletics in their home for cheap, but it has created a bloated industry. If you don't watch sports, you are getting hosed. More importantly, there are no controls over what the local cable company charges for their bundles, which is why they have pushed costs up every year of the past three decades (yes, some of that gets blown back to content producers, but the two major cable companies are making oil-industry-level profits).
The actual way to reduce content costs is to (1) remove the monopoly in the middle (which monopoly is based on the scarcity of a resource which is no longer tied to the content monopoly they enjoy), (2) unbundle consumer-hostile bundles, (3) return competition to the content marketplace by lowering barriers to entry while keeping reputation systems. Of course, that's all industry-wide stuff; for the individual the #1 way to reduce your content costs are to consume cheaper content - TV shows that are a few weeks old or a year old are dirt cheap, or books, movies, etc. When you are paying $100/month to a cable company no matter what you watch, there's no reason to seek alternate forms of entertainment, but if you get off the cable teat you will quickly find that you really don't need the TV on 10-12 hours per day piping in reality shows and UFO conspiracy theories.
Why? Seems like a deal with Apple would provide them with more leverage, not less.
And they all could presumably be covered by Apple, etc. as well.And we've already established that Apple's standard 30% cut would provide them with more revenue per subscriber.
You are needlessly limiting the demographic here. HBO is already an addon service to cable. Any HBO customer could subscribe however they wanted.
Cable companies are the ones that would be disrupted, not HBO.
It amazes me that people still rent their cable boxes tom the cable company for $60/year or more. It's been a long time since I've had cable; do they no longer let you "buy" an overpriced box? Used to be they rented the box for $3/mo and sold it for $50, and you could buy the same hardware from the manufacturer for $20 but without the "secret sauce" to decode the company's specific encoding. Now they are charging $5-6? I'm assuming they either don't let you buy the hardware or charge something like $100 or more per box?