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Apple Removes 99-Cent TV Show Rentals from iTunes Store and Apple TV [Updated]

It's interesting that studios think 99 cents is too cheap considering that you buy entire tv series seasons on DVD for less than 20 bucks on amazon. I personally found 99 cent even too expensive considering that I can just watch them on TV - if I lived in the US that was. Strange world.
 
s1nt4x said:
tv shows where not really rental material , the occasion when i wold actually watch a tv show 2 or more times is very very rare so it was just nor profitable, but let`s hope the buy prince will be close to rent price or they will just price them self out of business
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blink blink... isn't that the purpose of rental? You don't rewatch it so why bother owning it?

I'll never participate in itunes TV model with these insane prices... just to watch the daily show & colbert every night for a month I would have to pay more than half my entire cable bill. There's just no way I'm doing that.
 
Most channels like ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and such can be viewed over the air in HD. What we need is custom TV packs at decent prices. Either offered through the cable and satelite providers or online. Let us build a custom list of channels. I don't need 200 channels for $80/mo. Let me get 20 channels of my choice for $20/mo and free or super cheap DVR rates.

If offered online, the networks could cut out the cable and satellite providers all together. This improves their profit and cuts out the middle man allowing us to save money too!
 
I like the purchase model, but the price is too high really. If they would drop the price $1, that would be a huge difference.

I also would love a subscription model for new content.
 
I always thought the whole "TV rental" was a stop-gap measure until the "iCloud" service came along. The new ATV had no way of storing large quantities of TV shows, and Apple could not contractually allow constant re-downloading, so they simply went for the rental/streaming contracts. Now that you can buy and store the TV show in the cloud and watch whenever you want without even needing a computer to download the content for permanent storage, I think that TV show rental program is no longer required.

I personally never rented a single show since I could buy the show for a dollar more. You never know when you want to re-watch an episode of something (especially a really good series). For an extra buck I had no problem buying on my computer over renting on Apple TV (and then streaming it from my computer to the ATV). However, I certainly believe the movie rental service has legs and I much prefer it to Dish Network Pay-per-view service.

The old Apple TV was essentially a big iPod tethered wirelessly to your computer. The new one is basically a key to unlock the content you have stored in the cloud. TV Show rentals were only needed so they could give the new Apple TV a way to work without iTunes running on a computer on the same WiFi network. Now Apple has solved that problem.
 
Living in Canada I never got a chance to rent, but if memory serves wasn't the selection rather limited? I would gladly rent shows like Fringe, Dexter, the Borgias, or The Walking Dead in a heartbeat! I love these shows, and watch them loyally, but I don't want to shell out $3 an episode to buy them, I just want to see it once. . .
 
xkalibur said:
Oh, please. Is the most important video streaming site on a Roku (YouTube)? Right. Does the Roku play perfectly with iTunes & iPhoto collections? Nope. Does the Roku do AirPlay? No, it doesn't.
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Does AppleTV do Amazon on Demand? No. Roku wins. And LOL at the guy that said AppleTV has more to offer than Roku. Holy crap that's just wrong in a million different ways.
 
Still awaiting everything to do with TV shows on the Apple TV in the UK. I wonder when everyone else is going to get purchased content streaming.
 
When a company like Apple has ALL the control, the price of participation will continue to climb.

If Apple is successful in destroying Android, you haven't seen anything yet.

Your Apple Experience may become very Pricey
 
Hmm, if only there was a way to buy a wider range of whole seasons as individual products that played on a variety of manufacturer's devices which you could rent or buy at a lower price than iTunes... that would be great! It might be too much to ask that it didn't tie up my internet connection and was much higher quality as well, but I guess I can dream... :rolleyes:

Less sarcastically, as others have said, for people who do want to watch most of their video content online, subscription makes so much more sense for everyone, so this news is not hugely surprising I suppose.
 
What a load of crap! Customers prefer to buy TV Shows??? Maybe some shows I would buy, but a great majority I would just want to see once, so just renting. That sucks.
 
this was a specific function apple advertised for ATV. people should fully expect a full refund for returning their apple tv's...otherwise, its classic bait and switch and apple could have a decent size lawsuit on their hands.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

TV shows that I'll only watch once are too expensive to buy. There was not enough selection available to rent.

So I never used the service, even though I have an apple tv.
 
vitzr said:
When a company like Apple has ALL the control, the price of participation will continue to climb.

If Apple is successful in destroying Android, you haven't seen anything yet.

Your Apple Experience may become very Pricey
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I doubt this is gonna happen, Apple isn't trying to destroy Android, if they did the game would already be over.
 
MacRumors said:
networks were reluctant to sign onto the program, finding the pricing too low for their tastes
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Did the networks forget they are transmitting their shows over the air, for free? Sure, there are commercials, but it's free.

HDTV antenna + EyeTV + iTunes + AppleTV = free DVR of broadcast shows, with archiving and VOD.

When networks think $1/episode is too cheap, it almost sounds like they're also saying their advertising-based business model isn't working out for them, either. Unless they think they can get better than $1/episode worth of advertising out of a single person's viewing?
 
Yea, Like I Believe That.!!!

What a pack of lies. If you believe that "people would rather buy tv shows" I've got some ocean front property in Colorado I'm looking to sell. The fact is that people weren't willing to pay Apple's outrageous pricing. I refuse to support iTunes due to the expense of so many of their offerings. At some point people have to use some common sense when it comes to wasting their expendable cash. I'd rather just spend 5 mins. online & reserve a redbox movie. then drive to the nearest box & rent my movie of choice for $1.. Plus, I can copy it if I decide it's worth it. The most current tv shows I just watch on one of the numerous websites that stream for "free" & I have more than I can ever watch.
 
xyster said:
So this makes the Apple TV an expensive Roku...
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It was always an expensive Roku with limited services.

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Drag'nGT said:
If offered online, the networks could cut out the cable and satellite providers all together. This improves their profit and cuts out the middle man allowing us to save money too!
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No they can't. A OTA network is not just one big company. They consist of many parts and affiliate stations who want to serve their areas directly.

Not to mention that if it was offered online the only way to receive that in the majority of cases is to ... wait for it ... use your cable company for broadband.

So even if the impossible happened cablecos would just jack up their broadband rates and lower their caps to offset the loss of television subscribers.
 
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