Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Collects 15% of Revenue Generated From HBO NOW and Other Apple TV Apps
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Umm, no on many points.
You do know that cable TV and Internet is going through the same pipes, right? They're just on different frequencies and cable companies have moved toward encrypting their content, which means it is uniquely scrambled per cable box.
Also, video on demand is uniquely streamed, not multi-casted to everyone at once.
Yes, it can work and you're oversimplifying how Internet streams work. Look at Netflix's Open Connect to see how it works.
Here's an example:
HBO upload their content once to staging servers in multiple areas around the world. In each area, they sign contracts to store their content on a local cache server, which is usually stored within the ISP's data centers and from there, ISP stream to their customers. The traffic is local, not through the web. In this case, the cost of bandwidth is almost nil because local bandwidth is always every cheap. It's the upload and sharing traffic between ISP/data centers that cost money.
It is never from HBO to customer directly or HBO would be out of business by now because it is very expensive to do this.
----------
Sorry but it doesn't matter where you get your HBO, you're not never paying entirely to the company. That's not how it works, there is always a middleman in this picture.
Even if you're appearing to pay HBO directly, you're actually paying to the local CDN providers that HBO will pay to instead.
With Apple TV, you can buy HBO with nothing else. Sling TV is just like cable, you must pay a fee per month, and you can add HBO on top of that fee
A record company's gross margin on a digital download is 70% and they pay typical midlevel artists 7 to 14 cents on the gross margin dollar *after* recouping advances. If you're signed to Warner Bros. and sell a quarter million copies of your latest album, you basically made nothing.
Apple's take is not that much different from a cable distributor, except that cable distributors have maybe what... a few million "install base"... Apple's advantage for HBO is an install base of hundreds of millions, so it was probably a very fair deal to them as they'd done the forecast projections and concluded they can make more money paying apple a little bit more than they pay dying cable providers to gain access to growing user base rather than a declining one.
HBO for Sling is a much better deal if you already have Sling. $5 less and you get to watch Game of Thrones when it actually airs.
But Sling Media players cost more than $69 for entry, so if you don't already have a Slingbox it isn't necessarily a better deal for you.
The air date is moot... Game of Thrones airs on HBO NOW at the same time it does on HBO cable.
Huh, what media players? I have Sling TV, and I can watch it on the iPhone, Android, and my desktop computer. YOu don't need to buy any media player. It's just $20, and you get ESPN, AMC, TNT, Disney, Travel CHannel, and a selection of other decent channels.
Another $15 a month gets you HBO on Demand and live streaming.
I was assuming you meant having the sling media player. But if you have an iPhone then having sling doesn't present a benefit over getting HBO directly from iTunes, all else being equal. So I'm not quite sure what your argument is.
Ok, for some reason I thought HBO Now is $20 a month, but it's only $15. My argument was that HBO for SLing was $5 cheaper. I guess it's the same price.
Still HBO Sling has the added advantage of being able to stream HBO live, while as I understand HBO Now is not a live TV service but On Demand; although I heard that GOT will be available the same time as as Calbe HBO as you said. The other advantage, at least for those who are not strictly invested in the Apple eco system like myself, is that Sling is available on a whole slew of platforms including Roku, XBOX, PC, Android, and iOS.
Best deal is patience. Then buy the Bluray for superior video and sound in addition to digital versions for phone or pad. I do that in the case of Game of Thrones for its excellence and re-watch capacity.
I did cancel them once. There was only one "are you sure" question and no sales pitch. You can also put the service on hold with one click in case you temporarily don't need it.
You can also find discounted Hulu gift cards from time to time. I'm currently on a 12-month subscription that I got for $67.
You are incorrect. This is exactly how it works and that is why you need a tuner (even QAM for HDTV) to tune in to the existing data streams for broadcasts. The signal is out there and you are merely tuning in. Now if you have one-demand services, that is different, but for most TV watching that is how it works.
Streaming canned content is scalable. Read up on CDN technology. Basically, popular content is cached in many locations close to the edges of the network and streamed from there. As demand grows, you scale out the caches.
Live content (e.g. sport events) is a different story though.
Share and share alike i always say
Why shouldn't Apple get 15%... your using THEIR products after all...
God for bid I couldn't make money in part of something
...
However, what i've seen of HBO now, even with 'the first episode of Game of Thrones Season 5" available on Apple TV, I'm still kind of shocked.... that these all movies/tv shows "expire". In Game of Thrones case it's January 1 2018
That's a long while yet, but still the idea they can do that ? I'm shocked,,, (well not that shocked)
What sort of service do u call that ? I thought it would permanent... not on a rotating type system...
I'm kinda shocked not that i have concerns really to the point... but i am shocked we were never informed up front about this expiring...
Get us all geared up for something good, and then "Bam!!" down we go..
Why shouldn't Apple get 15%... your using THEIR products after all...
God for bid I couldn't make money in part of something
...However, what i've seen of HBO now, even with 'the first episode of Game of Thrones Season 5" available on Apple TV, I'm still kind of shocked.... that these all movies/tv shows "expire". In Game of Thrones case it's January 1 2018
That's a long while yet, but still the idea they can do that ? I'm shocked,,, (well not that shocked)
What sort of service do u call that ? I thought it would permanent... not on a rotating type system...
I'm kinda shocked not that i have concerns really to the point... but i am shocked we were never informed up front about this expiring...
Get us all geared up for something good, and then "Bam!!" down we go..
We've seen a Coca-Cola machine, and HBO on Apple's main stage; the same stage that also presented us health initiatives. What else can we expect?!
I got the free trial - will probably cancel the service after that.
The movies are the same ones that were on HBO in the 1990s.
----------
I prefer to subscribe to services like Hulu (currently have that) and Netflix (don't use that ATM) directly through their web pages. Cancelling is just as easy. As much as I like Apple, they are already the richest company on the planet and I'd rather give those 15% to the guys who actually do the work.
HBO doesn't have any customer facing staff - they deal only with cable / satellite companies. That 15% is well worth it to have apple handle the sales / customer service issues for them.
Share and share alike i always say
Why shouldn't Apple get 15%... your using THEIR products after all...
God for bid I couldn't make money in part of something
However, what i've seen of HBO now, even with 'the first episode of Game of Thrones Season 5" available on Apple TV, I'm still kind of shocked.... that these all movies/tv shows "expire". In Game of Thrones case it's January 1 2018
That's a long while yet, but still the idea they can do that ? I'm shocked,,, (well not that shocked)
What sort of service do u call that ? I thought it would permanent... not on a rotating type system...
I'm kinda shocked not that i have concerns really to the point... but i am shocked we were never informed up front about this expiring...
Get us all geared up for something good, and then "Bam!!" down we go..
Did you know Netflix movies come and go as well? At least HBO tells you when their's are rotating out.
Yeah that I have no argument with. I'm only saying that while you originally thought it was a much better deal, it's really the exact same deal but for platforms other than AppleTV.
That all emanates from HBO... they decide what they want to give up to get on which platforms, so if there do end up being discrepancies I hope people recognize that and criticize HBO not the platform maker.
If you're not already heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem, the integration and ownership Apple bears end to end may or may not appeal to you, otherwise the flexibility of the Roku may appeal to you. Either way, I'm glad that television is moving, slowly but surely, in this direction.... finally.
I wasn't criticizing Apple or HBO for that matter. I was just merely stating that if you were already a Sling client, getting HBO for Sling is probably a better deal than HBO Now because HBO for Sling has live airing of content like a normal TV service & On demand content whereas HBO Now only has On Demand. Originally also, I had thought incorrectly HBO Now was $20/month, which contributed my thinking that HBO for Sling was a better deal. That's all.
Versus not telling you and you not watching it in time, yes. No movie service has perpetual movies in its library, not Netflix, not HBO, not iTunes. Movies are licensed for X number of years and the licenses are then re-licensed for another price. Expiration dates also encourage views vs people never getting around to viewing a movie because there's no rush. Digital files, in spite of what pirates like to claim, ARE physical entities in that they take up space on banks and banks of servers that cost money to have and maintain. How many buildings full of storage servers would HBO have to have to maintain copies of every movie it has ever shown? There's a continual lifecycle for movies and HBO tends to be in the "after iTunes, before Netflix" spot in the food chain. These services are like theaters, not libraries. You want a movie or show permanently, you buy it and create your own library.