Yeah, I'd like some local news, but they go live with NFL we can pretty much let DirecTV go.
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Apple Frustrated by Inability to Reach Deals With TV Programmers for Television Service
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Yeah, I'd like some local news, but they go live with NFL we can pretty much let DirecTV go.
You realize those commercials help pay for programming right? Or the subscription fees that other customers pay are funding the shows that YOU like? Or that Netflix and Hulu are cheap because the content providers/networks get paid for first run ad fees and subscription costs?
Of course not. You just think you should pay half of what you pay and get exactly what you want.
Just let the content makers make their own apps. Eventually people will get tired of paying for 15 different content providers and the bundles will happen naturally over time. Sure we'd all like them here faster but you can't bully them like they did with the music industry. They saw what happened there and are determined to keep control as long as they can.
I'm not defending cable companies, as they can go and suck a fat one...BUT, I highly doubt that cable companies were completely against Apple getting a piece of the pie. There are two sides to every story and something tells me that maybe Apple either didn't offer enough cash or maybe asking for too big of a cut on revenue. Executives at cable companies are evil, but not necessarily stupid. They know perfectly well that it's only a matter of time before consumers get what they want, they are probably just trying to get a better deal than what Apple might be offering.
I personally do not care who offers a-la carte channels first (Apple, Comcast or whoever else), hopefully we get them in the next 2 years.
Maybe they could have a version of the View with Tim, Angela, Eddie and Phil. Or cooking with Jony.
Some of us could give to $hits about any sports, live or otherwise.
I agree I was a cord cutter, but after netflix, hulu, sling etc i was paying as much as i could by taking the Dish deal which got me the 190 channels, plus my local sports network, a year prepaid netflix and $100 visa card
Apple is learning the hard lesson of dealing with an oligopoly. When the major media companies are so few (Fox, NBC Universal, Time Warner, Viacom and Disney) and when they are in bed with or directly own other content delivery (e.g. NBC owning Comcast) they have little incentive to help bring a competing delivery service into being. Apple is used to being able to say, "We're Apple, who the hell are you?" In this case the answer is, "We're the company that owns 20% of all the media content, who the hell are YOU?"
No more so than any other business. Don’t be so short sighted. It’s no different than Apple bundling lots of app that you never use, (and there are plenty), but still charging you for the whole OS, and this is the only option they give you.
It suits their business model to do it this way and they sell it to you under the guise of, 'you’ll need it to be productive out of the box’. You pretty much need just a mail client, a browser and a word editor as basics.
How about reduce the price of the hardware, (PLEASE DON’T say the OS is free because it isn’t), and let me download the apps I actually use. Wouldn’t have saved me a lot admittedly but I’d rather the money was in my pocket than that of Tim Crook.
I have NEVER used;
- Chess.
- Facetime.
- Game Centre.
- iBooks.
- iDVD.
- LaunchPad.
- Photo Booth.
- Photos.
- Stickies.
I don’t use, (but did try out once);
- Twitter.
- Time Machine.
It’s what all businesses are about. Especially Apple. If they really were about the user there would be two USBC and not one, there’d be a choice of 32/64/128GB iPhones. etc. etc.
There is an option in ESPN's contract with Sling TV that lets the deal be terminated should it cannibalize ESPN's core pay TV business, something Apple likely wouldn't have agreed to.
Is this any different than we won’t allow your app the functionality to do ‘X' but our in house version will do it?
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Then why are they making deals with Sony and not Apple?
https://www.playstationnetwork.com/vue
And Sony just signed Disney with ESPN and ABC.
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2015...ney-owned-networks-coming-to-playstation-vue/
You don’t get what you want so you steal. Great. Poor choice is enough excuse for that is it?
People torrent because they are dishonest and want stuff free. Don’t be so naive it’s not because of the bundles. Doesn’t matter how cheap it is, if someone shows you how to get it for nothing you will at the very least have a good think about it.
I have FreeView/FreeSat. Other than the hardware fee it costs me nothing. See how I have the choice not to torrent? I don’t want the bundles, (and I very much suspect that would include any upcoming Apple bundles as it’s very unlikely one provider witll give me exactly what I want), so I don’t have them.
And guess how much that one channel would cost if it wasn't for the other 57 channels funding it?
I'm getting the impression that people don't understand how cable television works...
I agree. As far as I am concerned, Hulu has pretty much "cracked" TV. And now that there is the commercial-free tier, it's a real pleasure to watch. Perhaps they'll even offer more choices under their umbrella in the future (like they do with Showtime today).
Cable companies give away DVRs for free when you sign up for 2 years. Why does Apple think they should get 30% for making their own set top box (apple tv) ? If cable companies wanted to give customers a la carte selection, they can do that now without adding Apple as another middleman.
And why cable providers will pay more for them than Apple
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It's simple math. Cable companies will keep the most popular channels on an a la cart basis and lump some others into the basic bundle. They have the information to identify what people watch and tier accordingly. They may be many things but they aren't dumb. As long as they control the pipe that can structure it to their advantage. You can get a basic bundle, non-HD, in the US, I wonder what % of subscribers actually buy it?
Of course, they can always up the cost of Internet access for basic buyers to make up for any loss in cable revenue.
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The big guys get the lion's share while all the rest get pennies, but get pennies from every subscriber, which is much more than they would get if they tried to sell their content separately to the 3 people who wou;d actually pay for it. If those three represent a dispersed market for advertisers then they are glad to take the pennies in exchanger for ad revenue by delivering desirable eyeballs.
"Fund" was the wrong word. I should have said "if it wasn't for those 57 bad channels... nobody could get the one good channel"
Here's the deal: cable companies want your money... and you want to watch TV. So you pay your cable bill.
The cable company needs channels for you to watch. So they pay the content providers for channels.
But the content providers won't just sell them the good channels... they "bundle" a bunch of channels together so they can charge more.
And if the cable companies don't agree to pay... they won't have any channels. And thus can't take subscribers' money and the cable company doesn't have a reason to exist.
Discovery Networks won't sell the Discovery Channel to cable companies without making them also pay for TLC, the Oprah Network, Animal Planet, etc.
Viacom won't sell them Comedy Central without also selling them CMT, MTV, Nickelodean, Spike, Logo, etc.
There are a dozen of these giant media companies that control most of what you want to watch.
And that's why the average cable subscriber gets 189 channels even though they only watch an average of 17.
So when people say "I don't want to pay for channels I don't watch"... it's not really up to them. It's the cable companies who are forced to pay for all those extra channels in order to get ANY channels.
And the deal is for every cable subscriber to get every channel. You're paying for channels you don't watch because the cable company already paid for those channels. There's no way to NOT give you those channels to let you pay less... nor is there a way to offer them "a la carte" so people can select certain channels.
So everybody gets 200 channels whether you want them or not. They're all part of your cable bill because that's how cable companies work.
Viacom expects a certain amount of money from the cable companies. A few pennies times 16 channels in their portfolio times 100 million subscribers.
Well what if you just wanted Comedy Central? I'm not sure a cable company is even allowed to sell just one channel. If they did... it would be priced so high that no one would want it anyway.
Instead... you'll get Comedy Central... but you'll also have to get BET and VH1 with it.
I don't really see the point of making those deals, to me that kind of TV is dead, I can't see nothing but "on demand" in the future. I only feel I'm missing a way to see sports in the same way as I use Netflix and HBO. And in Denmark the public TV station already have an app.
The new Apple TV is excellent as it is with games like "Does not commute" and "Pearl Necklace" and with HBO and Netflix.
The new Apple TV is excellent as it is with games like "Does not commute" and "Pearl Necklace" and with HBO and Netflix.
Who said anything about lower prices for me? The point is lower prices for Apple, so that they can move to a more a la carte system instead of massive bundles, which in turn benefits me. Apple would make a boatload of money but that's fine if I can choose my content for a reasonable price instead of paying $125 a month, 95% of which I never use.
Cable is just painfully inefficient. I learned this when trying to watch the recent democratic debate and had no idea what channel it was on. Flipping around I eventually just googled it to find s YouTube official link to a live stream. Clicked it and was watching s live stream in seconds
I don't say this because I feel what I did was remarkable in the slightest. What is remarkable is that content providers haven't moved on to their own a la cart offerings. Nor have cable providers moved on to offer fully streamed channels. And I really don't understand why. Fear of adoption rates?
I don't say this because I feel what I did was remarkable in the slightest. What is remarkable is that content providers haven't moved on to their own a la cart offerings. Nor have cable providers moved on to offer fully streamed channels. And I really don't understand why. Fear of adoption rates?
This is only first round of the fight. Apple has time on their side as more and more chord cutters are appearing in the market. There is eventually a tipping point where the networks have to give in and break their bundle deals.
It is just a matter of time and, probably, a few executives need to retire that used to have a Manhattan or two with David Sarnoff and company in their early careers.
A la cart is that way to go and I suspect it will, I the long run, bring cable bills up. I suspect we will see pay per view options in all sorts of channels this way.