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 Shows Interest in Buying Time Warner Assets for Streaming TV Service
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Exactly. And I don't see how Apple owning TW solves this. CNBC spent less than a minute it this morning which to me says there's no smoke there and nobody is taking it seriously.
It's great news because it represents another possible alternative to obtaining content. However, I'm not willing to pay Verizon or Comcast $40 a month for the privilege of watching TV, and I'm not going to pay Apple that much either. I currently get most of what I watch via OTA TiVo and Netflix. I watch a couple of shows on HBO Now, but I'm considering dropping that because I don't really use it as much as I thought I would.
Depends on your perspective.
I can see why Apple would (need to) price it at that level; but I also doubt it will be particularly successful - cord-cutters who don't want to pay $70/month for cable TV probably don't want to pay $40/month to Apple either. For roughly half of that amount, I can get Netflix plus ad-free Hulu and have more than I want to watch already.
Not sure about Mr. Cue, but I do think buying Time/Warner would be a disaster. I think Apple just needs to keep the conversations going... look for opportunities along the way and keep building the eco-system with more robust apps and interface for AppleTV... the content will come. Sooner or later the networks will cave. If they wanted to hurry it along, they could always toss some subsidy dollars at the networks to help finance the transition from live broadcast cable.
No, but it's discussed in the article. Apple is looking at streaming live TV. Netflix does not stream live TV. It's not difficult to see the differences.
Unbundling channels will most likely not save consumers money. If anything it will limit a consumer's choice of content as niche channels with fewer subscribers will disappear. Popular channels will be priced higher individually, so the average consumer will end up paying slightly less for far, far, fewer channels....and most likely paying even more for broadband. Not a winning situation.
Agreed. Apple needs to bide it's time and see where some of this shakes out. Plus history shows large acquisitions never really pan out. AOL/Time Warner was a disaster.
I have TW for my internet and they for the most part are reliable and the thought of Apple buying them seems interesting, I hope in may area they can offer more than 50mbps speeds. TW on the TV side though is just not a good deal and I end up with DirecTV that I am taking a hard look at cutting when my contract expires this May.
Most likely scenario is they wouldn't spend a single red cent. They'd give shareholders an equivalent number of shares in Apple stock. At most they'd give out around 10% of the overall transaction price in cash.
It'd also instantly become a profit center. Time Warner's properties are cash cows, and they'd be taking in an instant revenue stream from every provider that sells them. Comcast bought NBC with only 2 billion dollars cash to its name, in a stock deal, not because traditional pay-TV was sticking around, but because the true money is in content ownership as traditional starts to fade away... it was a very forward-thinking move for a slow-moving established industry giant. The content they had previously, added to what they picked up with NBCU, now accounts for ~80% of their total revenues, cable TV and internet service be damned.
So for Apple, the money would come in the same place... they'd go from a 30% cut of their iTunes sales of TV series and movies from these properties, to 100%... they'd get subscriber fees from competitors... they'd obtain the same content negotiating leverage as Comcast employs... the same Comcast that was reportedly the only holdout when they tried to piece together their service in the first place.
[doublepost=1452702674][/doublepost]
Apple isn't buying Time Warner Cable... Charter is. And it looks like the deal is going to be approved with conditions that they need to improve speeds across their footprint to their current max offerings of 300 Mbps over a 3 year period.
Time Warner is a totally different company. They are HBO, TNT, TBS, CNN, CW, Warner Bros Studio, New Line Cinema, DC Comics, Cartoon Network and more...
Bundled TV is still going strong. Most people who think A la carte is the answer don't realize how much more expensive it will be.
Agreed, also, this service is similar to what Sling is current offering. I personally will prefer to not have to deal with a cable company at all (besides getting my internet from them). If I can pay $30/40 every month, with a click of a button start/cancel the service without having to deal with rude cable representative I think that's a added bonus.
Whether it's live or not doesn't matter to me. I'll pay $9/month for old content before I'll pay $40/month for "live" or current content.
You can start with how much you pay for internet...that will become drastically more expenses as soon as providers start losing television revenue.
is the logo you are looking for.
This is correct.
If Apple buys this company it will a huge acquisition. Time Warner Inc. Owns Warner Bros, so Apple would essentially have access to Marvel/Disney and DC properties. As well as Turner Broadcasting properties. That would give Apple more muscle to make deals with Comcast.
For the record, this is what the article says about the pricing:
"Apple has previously been in talks with CBS, ABC, Fox, Disney, Viacom, Discovery and others about launching a web-based streaming service that would bundle approximately 25 channels for $30 to $40 per month, but content owners have been reluctant to give up control of the living room up to this point."
There's nothing in there about "live" content, just streaming. To me, that sounds a lot like Netflix.
You pay more than $9...... Please also add your ISP bill. Oh and if you use your cellphone data to access Netflix.. Add that cost too.
Nope, I pay $9. I'd be paying for internet anyways so there's no need to roll that into the cost. Same for my cell phone bill.
That is not how it works, some channels, for example HBO, the carrier has to pay for, some channels, like shopping and ad channels, pay the carrier to be included. The channels that no one wants are or should be subsidizing the channels you do want. But maybe the carriers are just charging you anyway and not using the subsidy to reduce your cost. We don't know.
The problem is the lack of visibility and extent. If for example, I could get $5/month off of HBO if I subscribed to a shopping channel I may or may not want to make that value decision, but today I have to accept the carriers choice, not mine.
Which results in 300 channels that are available and I am paying for when I only watch 6 or 8. That just seems like a bad deal for me. Maybe its not, but I really think that it is.
Disney owns Marvel and Disney properties, Warner Bros has nothing to do with it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Time_Warner