Apple Targeting $0.99 TV Show Rentals As It Moves iTunes to the Cloud

[jettredmont]

Paying .99 vs. free on abc.com., cbs.com, fox.com, hulu.com, history.com, southparkstudios.com, etc

Get your head out of Apple's ass.

For $1 you get higher quality (significantly so), no ads, and consistent back library availability. It's also "easier" to get on a big screen (Hulu wants to charge $10/month for that convenience), although I personally find that argument less than compelling (I mean, come on ... how hard is it to hook a laptop up to the VGA input of any modern TV?)

Apples and oranges. They each have their place. My family dropped satellite two years ago and have settled into a fairly solid mixture of iTunes, Hulu, and the myriad other streaming sites (cbs.com, abc.com, comedycentral.com, etc) ever since. Which source we choose for a show is based on how important video quality is to the enjoyment of the show and if the show is available for streaming at all (which may be because it is too new, so we might wait a week to save $2, or because it is too old, in which case we don't have a choice). With the "higher quality / more available" option cutting the price in half, it makes it that much more likely that we'll be choosing that option.

 

[afireintonto]

Apple just needs to have a zune pass style subscription for like 40-50 bucks a month. Other wise, I'll continue torrenting.

 

[jettredmont]

I personally feel that any kind of payment per episode model will fail. Who wants to pay upwards of $25 for one season of a show? If you rent those episodes, you can never go back and watch them again for free.

Hulu and Netflix grant you all-you-can-eat access for one flat rate. This is what the cable companies have done and have been successful too.

Until Apple creates a subscription plan for ALL tv shows, count me out.

Apples and oranges. There are several emerging models, and some people will favor one over the other, and most people, I suspect, will choose a mixture.

Model 1: Pay to own. Download it. Keep a copy of it forever. If you want to watch that one episode of Hannah Montana 10 years from now, you can do it for free! (minus the aggregate cost of having to have maintained the video and the risk of the video being unplayable at that point).

Model 2: Subscription fee for partial library, streamable. Library is limited, and different subscription services overlap significantly. I suspect this will either move towards more focused subscriptions (all ABC shows for $5/month) or a single consolidated service (Hulu wins all and offers every show under the sun for $20/month). My money's on more focused subscriptions, although Hulu would obviously want you to believe they'll have everything under their umbrella. The ad-support versus fee-support of this model is variable right now, but conventional wisdom has the mix here spreading more towards the Cable content/ad mix (two minutes of show for one minute of ad watching), perhaps in return for more content without fees rising.

Model 3: Subscription fee for full library, high quality. This is the Cable / Satellite model. $60-100 per month for a large library, pushing $200/month for "everything". Plus one minute of ads for every 2 minutes of show. You can time-shift high quality, and you can stream stuff you forgot to time shift. Obviously Model 2 and Model 3 are in direct competition.

Model 4: Pay to own, high quality. This is the DVD/BluRay model. Similar to 2/3, this is in the most direct competition with Model 1. The advantage of (1) over (4) is, however, immediacy of availability (I can't imagine a studio putting out a DVD each week the night the show airs, can you?)

There are probably several other models which will come out, but the main orthogonal aspects I'm seeing right now are:

1. Quality. Streaming versus downloadable versus physical delivery.

2. Immediacy. Moment of airing versus next day versus next week versus next Fall.

3. Cost model. Convenience of a set monthly bill versus the flexibility of pay-for-what-you-use. I think, in general, the pendulum is swinging away from all-you-can-eat for everything (cell phones, internet, you name it); things like this where your usage is highly visible and controllable are the most likely places for all-you-can-eat models to falter (unlike internet, say).

4. Breadth of content / granularity of payment. Do you pay for a single episode, a single show/season, everything a particular "network" puts out, or some larger collection? People have been asking for a la carte cable subscriptions for years and years; seems odd that we have the technology to deliver that model finally now and no one would want it any more. This is obviously fairly related to (3).

5. Ownership. When you stop paying, does everything go away, or do you just stop receiving new content?

 

[pgwalsh]

I can think of some reasons people would pay a dollar to rent a TV show, but I personally doubt I ever would, and I don't think it really has much of a chance of catching on.

EdZackery!!!

I think they either need to do subscription, like Netflix, or lower it down to .25 or .50 at most.

Right now I have Netflix and PS3/Wii and it's great. I know has more updated shows for download, but I'm willing to wait and save a few dollars.

 

[DrDomVonDoom]

I don't think this sales model will fail persay, I think a lot of peple including myself would rather pay .99 cents to watch a show once, then triple that to watch it once then have it take space up on my HD.

Its all how you view the models, this model is cheaper, you get the same end result, you see the show, but you don't get to keep it. In itunes now you get the show for 2.99 (or 1.99) and get to keep the show and watch it whenever you want. Both of these are much cheaper then lets say spending ten bucks a month for one pay channel such as HBO to watch one show, that you don't get to keep, don't get to watch whenever you want, and you are limited to when you can watch it, also you aren't promised it will run again and if it is you have to catch it when its on.

Why are we still paying for THAT model? Yuck.

Its all about your viewing habits, do you watch the same series over and over? Get the show and buy it, or rent it if you want them once.

What they should do is like their TV show option to buy all the episodes and wait till they air then release them, they could make that for the rents. You rent the season for a discounted price, then get the shows as they air, and you could wait and watch all them at once, or whenever you have a chance.

 

[Eriden]

Sorry Steve, but .99 for a 24-hour rental will only appeal to die-hard fanbois and silicon valley upper-management types with heaps of disposable income.

The unwashed masses will stick with a model that allows them to watch shows repeatedly for a reasonable price. The Netflix model which allows all-you-can-eat streaming for under $10 per month is the model to beat. And to those who think that Netflix's selection sucks, they have been steadily improving over the last few years, and anything unavailable via instant streaming is only a day away through the mail.

Unless Apple releases an updated AppleTV/Apple branded TV with Netflix support, or reasonably priced subscription model, I'll stick with my current TV+Roku player setup.

 

[WilliamLondon]

eh. they should make it free and put lots of ads

What a good little consumer you are, an advertisers wet dream. Hell, more like you and they'll do away with advertising altogether and just send you a list of products they demand you purchase. For your cooperation in this programme, you can watch as many movies and films as you want*.

(*fair use policy remains in effect)

 

[Nicklaus]

We're almost over a barell right now with having to pay a high price per month now for cable AND its about 3 parts show to 1 part ads. Hulu and others want to continue on the gravy train of having us pay them for content and they sell the ad space. It either should go the way of pay a little essentially the cost per impression they get from advertisiers now and have ad free shows or keep the same ratio and provide as much as we want free.

 

[jettredmont]

Sorry Steve, but .99 for a 24-hour rental will only appeal to die-hard fanbois and silicon valley upper-management types with heaps of disposable income.

Huh. And here I thought that saving $80 a month by moving from Satellite to streaming and iTunes was something price-conscious people would do. Funny, I now feel terribly elite for blowing my money like that.

The unwashed masses will stick with a model that allows them to watch shows repeatedly for a reasonable price.

The unwashed masses couldn't give a flying flibbertigibbet about "watch[ing] shows repeatedly". Reasonable price is an argument, as are quality and availability and convenience. Repeat viewing is left to geeks.

IMHO, $10/month for what Netflix offers as far as current-season shows is just not worth it. If I were looking for movie rentals and old seasons, maybe, but those things were the first to be cut when belts tightened in our house; on the rare occasion when we rent a movie, $1 a shot from Redbox makes more sense than a standing $10/month subscription, and gives us a lot more control over the month-to-month budget.

We spend about $10-15 per month on iTunes shows during the heat of the season (which works out to an average of about $6.50/month for the year ... we spent $80 on iTunes shows last year), and get the rest streaming free (Hulu et al). I suspect our budget will sink to about $60/year should prices come down by half; the extra budget would pick up a few "marginal" shows which are better with better quality but not worth $2 each.

The Netflix model which allows all-you-can-eat streaming for under $10 per month is the model to beat. And to those who think that Netflix's selection sucks, they have been steadily improving over the last few years, and anything unavailable via instant streaming is only a day away through the mail.

Netflix selection of current-season television sucks. And DVD's are 6-9 months away for that, not in tomorrow's mail, because they don't exist yet.

This is all according to Netflix' search (funny they don't offer a browseable interface to current-season shows they have available for streaming ... that would be much more useful ...):

Modern Family: not available for streaming.
In Plain Sight: not available for streaming.
Chuck: not available for streaming.
Bones: available for streaming ... except not the 2009 (current) season.
Fringe: not available for streaming.
Warehouse 13: not available for streaming.
Hell's Kitchen: not available for streaming.
Castle: not available for streaming.

I'm having a really hard time, in fact, finding any current-season (well, just-ended season) TV shows I have watched on Netflix, with the sole exceptions of Heroes (which went off a cliff) and Lost (which is over).

So, maybe it's come a really long way, but as an alternative delivery method for current television shows (as opposed to DVDs and really old stuff), Netflix just isn't viable yet. Unless they are hiding their candle under a bushel and really do allow streaming of everything under the sun but don't want any prospective subscribers to know it ...

 

[T-Will]

iAdTV.

Interactive and magical ads on all your iDevices.

 

[CalebF]

Such pure greed, Mr. Jobs. Tsk.

I'm surprised you don't tie the Magic Mouse to iTunes and only make it work via the purchase of a $4.99 app.

Extortion everywhere.

 

[Juggler9000]

Perfect!

I use Hulu and Netflix streaming all the time but sometimes I want to watch something newer that neither has, so I buy an episode off iTunes. This would save me a couple bucks and I'll know the quality is good. I wouldn't use this a lot, but it would've saved me about 10 bucks in the past month on episodes that I will never watch again.

 

[Avatar74]

I can think of some reasons people would pay a dollar to rent a TV show, but I personally doubt I ever would, and I don't think it really has much of a chance of catching on.

You do realize that if it fails, that's Apple's opportunity to go back to the television industry and say, "We told you so."

Subscriptions were never Apple's first preference. They fought it for a long time... but the TV and music industry both wanted to go there. But the popularity of iTunes music pretty much quashed the recording industry's aspirations for subscription services to flourish nearly as much.

It's just a matter of time to see whether it works or not. Whether it does or doesn't, Apple will sell iPods, iPhones, iPads and so on.

 

[wreckshop]

Apple want to charge $.99 to watch a TV episode on its apple tv device which is connected to a TV.

Who would do that? Oh wait.....

 

[jrbigring]

Why not more than 24 hour rental?

I'm shocked that not a single person has commented that a 24 hour viewing period is complete rubbish. In my house, I may watch a show and someone else in the family may watch it a few days or even a week later. I certainly don't need to own every episode of The Office, nor do I feel the need to create DVDs of everything on my DVR. So "renting" is fine. But is very common that my wife may watch a show one day and will watch it a few days later. If the "rental" period were more like 30 days, or even a week, it might make sense.

 

[FearNo1]

Only the biggest mactards will go for this. Netflix streaming will kill this. Netflix is a power house.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I've wanted an option like this for a long time on Apple TV. I've always thought it was ridiculous that I could RENT a movie, but not a TV show when I'm far less likely to EVER watch a TV show a second time whereas if it's a good movie, I'm likely going to want to own it (Apple seems unable to secure even a REASONABLE number of HD movies to buy; most are b-movie garbage). There are times when I miss a show on TV (even on a DVR) and 99 cents would be a small price to pay to see that show when I want to see it so no matter how you look at it, it's an improvement over the current system of BUY ONLY.

The problem for the people whining in this thread is that they've become so used to just taking whatever they want off the Internet for free that nothing but "free" is any good and so they won't support it or a device that uses it when they can just take whatever they want off a torrent site. Video has become the 21st Century version of the whole Napster pirating thing. People will pay 99 cents for a song (more like $1.29 these days on iTunes; there are almost no 69 cents songs as many predicted; the price simply went up from 99 cents to $1.29 for half the catalog), but not for a tv show.

There are plenty of channels my cable company does not carry in HD yet (e.g. BBC America & Travel Channel come to mind) and so another way to get something like Doctor Who in AppleTV compatible 720P would be nice as well. This rumor doesn't address whether these 99 cents rentals would be SD only. I don't feel like paying $1.99 for an HD rental of a TV show. I think it should be more like 49 cents for SD and 99 cents for HD rentals. It wouldn't hurt if they reduced the cost of movie rentals either. Netflix is clearly the better deal if you watch more than 2 HD rentals a month.

 

[southparksteve]

I'd pay $0.99 to see a TV show with no ads. I am trying to get rid of cable, what with Netflix and Amazon on demand. If Apple TV bridges the gap that could be what makes me do it!

 

[Hammie]

Steve is sitting back smiling at all of you talking about this. You are all proving his downloaded content over blu-ray argument.

Personally, I would never pay and download a movie in order to watch it. I spent too much money on my home theater for it to go to waste with the low quality PQ and AQ of downloaded movies and TV shows.

Blu-ray is the only way I will go and my library proves it.

Granted, there have been a couple occasions where I rented a movie for the kids through the Apple TV because they wanted it then and there and stores were closed but I eventually bought it on blu-ray.

I know not everybody has the same opinion as me, but I just had to chuckle about this thread.

Good night, all!

 

[iZac]

TV being a very different medium of consumption than music, I think only a subscription model would work universally. (much like the season pass iTunes currently offers. TV is a much more passive medium and should someone want to just "watch TV" all night as they would on a regular service, at $0.99 a show, it would cost them like $6 a night, $180 a month?

Granted it will be great to shake people from their "watching the box all night" habits, but people are lazy. My friends are always baffled that I have a big(ish) TV but absolutely no connection to an aerial / cable / satellite. They can’t comprehend how I wouldn’t want to sink into a sofa and watch trash for 5 hours a night!

But the best thing, bar none, is that I’m not subjected to 90 minutes of advertisements every night.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Steve is sitting back smiling at all of you talking about this. You are all proving his downloaded content over blu-ray argument.

Personally, I would never pay and download a movie in order to watch it. I spent too much money on my home theater for it to go to waste with the low quality PQ and AQ of downloaded movies and TV shows.

Given the high quality of Apple's HD movie rentals (I have a $6000 setup with a 93" screen and 6.1 sound, BTW), your statement comes across as complete arrogance to me. I just get sick of hearing how "awful" everything but Blu-Ray is and that's just nonsense. Blu-Ray is complete overkill it terms of compression needed to produce a clean picture. That's fine given the space on a physical disc should be filled up, but that alone does not make everything else crap. I see the same snooty statements over and over again from people that have spent a fortune on Blu-Ray collections to replace their DVD collections and it's obvious where the bias comes from. Mine is better than yours is so 5th grade.

Waiting a day or two to get a Netflix rentals is not worth a minor improvement in resolution. I can get a good quality 720P rental NOW with AppleTV and if the movie is that great, I can always buy a BD disc later. It'd just get ripped/converted anyway since I refuse to go back to maintaining huge disc libraries when I can just push a button on a menu and go (no annoying FBI warnings, advertisements, slow-loading, bloated annoying animated menus, etc. that way either)

Blu-ray is the only way I will go and my library proves it.

That only proves you don't download. It proves absolutely NOTHING about the quality of anything else.

Granted, there have been a couple occasions where I rented a movie for the kids through the Apple TV because they wanted it then and there and stores were closed but I eventually bought it on blu-ray.

So you OWN one? Why would you ever buy such a POS?

 

[lilo777]

Given the high quality of Apple's HD movie rentals (I have a $6000 setup with a 93" screen and 6.1 sound, BTW), your statement comes across as complete arrogance to me. I just get sick of hearing how "awful" everything but Blu-Ray is and that's just nonsense. Blu-Ray is complete overkill it terms of compression needed to produce a clean picture. That's fine given the space on a physical disc should be filled up, but that alone does not make everything else crap. I see the same snooty statements over and over again from people that have spent a fortune on Blu-Ray collections to replace their DVD collections and it's obvious where the bias comes from. Mine is better than yours is so 5th grade.

Waiting a day or two to get a Netflix rentals is not worth a minor improvement in resolution. I can get a good quality 720P rental NOW with AppleTV and if the movie is that great, I can always buy a BD disc later. It'd just get ripped/converted anyway since I refuse to go back to maintaining huge disc libraries when I can just push a button on a menu and go (no annoying FBI warnings, advertisements, slow-loading, bloated annoying animated menus, etc. that way either)



That only proves you don't download. It proves absolutely NOTHING about the quality of anything else.



So you OWN one? Why would you ever buy such a POS?

HD Movies from iTunes have size about 3GB which is smaller than even regular DVD. So with iTunes you effectively are watching the movies in the quality lower than DVD - a format developed 15 years ago. This is a strange interpretation of "think different" motto

 

[newagemac]

HD Movies from iTunes have size about 3GB which is smaller than even regular DVD. So with iTunes you effectively are watching the movies in the quality lower than DVD - a format developed 15 years ago. This is a strange interpretation of "think different" motto

So you don't think compression techniques have improved in 15 years??? That's a poor comparison.

 

[Hammie]

Given the high quality of Apple's HD movie rentals (I have a $6000 setup with a 93" screen and 6.1 sound, BTW), your statement comes across as complete arrogance to me. I just get sick of hearing how "awful" everything but Blu-Ray is and that's just nonsense. Blu-Ray is complete overkill it terms of compression needed to produce a clean picture. That's fine given the space on a physical disc should be filled up, but that alone does not make everything else crap. I see the same snooty statements over and over again from people that have spent a fortune on Blu-Ray collections to replace their DVD collections and it's obvious where the bias comes from. Mine is better than yours is so 5th grade.

Waiting a day or two to get a Netflix rentals is not worth a minor improvement in resolution. I can get a good quality 720P rental NOW with AppleTV and if the movie is that great, I can always buy a BD disc later. It'd just get ripped/converted anyway since I refuse to go back to maintaining huge disc libraries when I can just push a button on a menu and go (no annoying FBI warnings, advertisements, slow-loading, bloated annoying animated menus, etc. that way either)



That only proves you don't download. It proves absolutely NOTHING about the quality of anything else.



So you OWN one? Why would you ever buy such a POS?

I never said mine is better. I just said that the quality is not equal to that of blu-ray and that Steve's stand against BD players is being validated. If you think I sound arrogant, so be it. My feelings won't be hurt. I'm simply stating my opinion.

I only have a 50" plasma TV, but I have a high end audio system. However, the few movies that I have watched through my ATV have had some severe banding on my TV (which has been calibrated). No movies are offering uncompressed audio, so there is gap (IMO, a large gap) between downloaded and blu-ray content.

In regards to me owning an ATV, I use it 95% for ALAC audio and 4% home movies. The remainder of the time it may be used for YouTube or the occasional downloaded movie for the kids.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

HD Movies from iTunes have size about 3GB which is smaller than even regular DVD. So with iTunes you effectively are watching the movies in the quality lower than DVD - a format developed 15 years ago. This is a strange interpretation of "think different" motto

If you don't think there is a difference between MPEG2 (DVD and early Blu-Ray) compression and H264, you've severely mistaken. I've got some HD movies I've compressed myself down to the 2.5GB range and they still blow DVD away by leaps and bounds (no compression artifacts visible that I can see).

I only have a 50" plasma TV, but I have a high end audio system. However, the few movies that I have watched through my ATV have had some severe banding on my TV (which has been calibrated). No movies are offering uncompressed audio, so there is gap (IMO, a large gap) between downloaded and blu-ray content.

In regards to me owning an ATV, I use it 95% for ALAC audio and 4% home movies. The remainder of the time it may be used for YouTube or the occasional downloaded movie for the kids.

I've never seen any banding, but if you're watching 720P on a 1080P native set you could easily get problems if the scaler being used isn't of high enough quality (if you're using the Apple TV one, you might try using the one in the TV by selecting 720P output instead of 1080P or vice versa to use the AppleTV's scaler and see if that makes any difference). I personally think a lot of the complaints about AppleTV movies looking "bad" compared to Blu-Ray may be in fact due to the scalers people have. 720P will always look better on a 720P native set and vice versa. With a high quality scaler, the differences are minimal, however. My projector is native 720P, so AppleTV sends it a native/clean signal.