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I would rent TV shows.

The only thing I'd be missing are sports. When can we rent those?
 
don't like rental - especially if it isn't streamed - don't want to wait an hour to download a 1/2 hour show!
the way for itv to work is to offer an app for abc, fox, disney, espn, etc
with espn app - you get live streaming from that broadcaster
you could then pick what apps (channels) you want
pick 3 channels or 30 or 300 with each channel charging monthly fee - just like the broadcaster charges comcast or whatever cable provider you use
you set up your own package and can add subtract or cancel anything/everything on a monthly basis!
i could live with ten channels (at $1-$5 each) i might pay just $25 and get everything i want and nothing i don't!
 
My ideal situation would be a good DVR to record OTA channels in HD with cable-only shows available through iTunes. 99 cents isn't bad at all, especially if it's HD. I'd be saving $80/month on my cable bill. That's $960 per year. Assuming 22 episode seasons, I could watch 43 series in addition to what's available over the air! I would probably watch considerably less than half of that.

The only hangup for me is ESPN. Which is owned by Disney. Hopefully Steve Jobs can negotiate a solution.
 
don't like rental - especially if it isn't streamed - don't want to wait an hour to download a 1/2 hour show!
the way for itv to work is to offer an app for abc, fox, disney, espn, etc
with espn app - you get live streaming from that broadcaster
you could then pick what apps (channels) you want
pick 3 channels or 30 or 300 with each channel charging monthly fee - just like the broadcaster charges comcast or whatever cable provider you use
you set up your own package and can add subtract or cancel anything/everything on a monthly basis!
i could live with ten channels (at $1-$5 each) i might pay just $25 and get everything i want and nothing i don't!

If you could do it on a monthly basis, I would be surprised. There wouldn't be a lot of subscribers for the summer months when there are fewer new shows coming out.

I think it would be cool if you could pick as many channels as you want, on a yearly subscription, then divide that total by 12 and pay monthly.

ESPN pack: $90
ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX: $25 a piece
History, Discover, Science channels: $15 a piece.

Say you get each of those, that's $235 for the year or just under 20 bucks a month. I might go for something like that.
 
Apple to Offer 99-Cent TV Show Rentals?

I think this would be great. Personally, I would love to drop Comcast subscription TV and just pay for each show. Some shows like the Daily Show & Colbert would add up (~$17/month) and what about shows like Morning Joe that I have on when I am getting ready in the morning (~$22/month). Then you got PTI, which could be another $22. What about sporting games? I'm just thinking that this could all add up fast, if I was to drop Comcast and go to this kind of service. Of course, it may not go to this extreme in the end or at first, I know that. I'm just thinking ahead.

Yes, packages would be great. I could see that working out well for both consumers and providers.
 
The only hangup for me is ESPN. Which is owned by Disney. Hopefully Steve Jobs can negotiate a solution.

well since Jobs sits on the Disney board of directors, he most definitely should come up with a solution/compromise.

I will eventually get an iTV or GoogleTV, i'm just waiting to see which offers better service/programming/price-point. :p Not going to purchase a device for brand loyalty.
 
Glad If they are going to charge $0.99 for renting a 22 or 44 minute episode on iTV, they should at least offer half-off if you subscribe to the entire season up front. I would hope this all is HD content we are talking about.
That seems pretty sensible to me.

I personally would like to see some sort of subscription service instead of per episode. $20 a month would be great.
 
Pay TV loses 218K subscribers

iTunes already taking a byte out of pay tv as 218K drop subscriptions. :D
 
I will eventually get an iTV or GoogleTV, i'm just waiting to see which offers better service/programming/price-point. :p Not going to purchase a device for brand loyalty.

I was under the impression Google TV was just for searching programs, no content delivery?
 
With Hulu, I generally watch about about 3 shows a night. That would cost me $90 a month if I rented those same shows through iTunes. No thanks.

Now, if Apple were to offer an all-you-can-eat subscription plan for around $30 a month, and it would work on both my Mac and my iPad, I'd be interested in that.
 
99 cents is too expensive for a tv show rental. For that price, you should get to keep it forever. Here's what I think would be ideal prices.

$0.39 - rent a TV show for a week
$0.99 - buy a TV show

$0.99 - rent a movie for a week
$8.00 - buy a movie

It's really ridiculous that they charge 4 bucks to rent a movie for 24 hours. You can get a movie from Redbox for 24 hours for only 1 dollar. And with iTunes, there's no physical media involved, All they're doing is sending bits. They don't have to have any physical inventory or anything, so they have no justification for charging so much. They really ought to be significantly cheaper than the alternative, not more expensive. The same goes for TV shows.
 
Damn, Apple milking/exploiting their fanbase like no other.

Rentals? seriously? so they make you purchase a file that has a lifespan, so that they make you end up buying DVD/Blu-Ray sets in the future. This is nonsensical.
 
If I could pay $2-4 (per game) to watch a College or NFL Football game of my choice (imagine completely avoiding blackouts), I would pay it without asking twice and would probably piss my pants from excitement. The only reason I have Direct TV is for the HD capability, College and NFL Football and misc. TV shows (3-4 total). I pay about $75 a month after taxes so being able to spend $1 per show, and a possible $2-4 per football game would make me the happiest person alive. There is so much crap on TV now, iTV sounds fantastic. It just needs a sports option and I bet it would really start invading peoples homes.
 
Maybe you have super-cheap cable or watch a lot more shows than I, but for me this option would be FAR cheaper than cable. (And my rabbit ears don’t pick up everything.)

A typical American show is about 22 episodes per year. Follow ten shows religiously and you’d spend $220.
....

A "real" antenna is usually $30-50 for people in cities. Once. And most of the cable series are available for free online not long after airing on the network. I really don't see myself paying $.99/show.
 
No way, its for content delivery as well.

Well from what I can see it delivers content from the web, but it doesn't deliver TV shows unless you have a DVR or something. So you still need to subscribe to a service. At least watching their videos that's what I've gathered. Unless you can point me to something different, I still believe it's just a search feature.
 
Over and over and over I keep reading responses of people pitching their ideal plan at a price a lot lower than they pay for cable/satt now. That's a great dream everyone, but why are those on the other end going to go for that?

They want to make at least as much as they make now from a current, well entrenched model. What motivates them to want to make less AND perhaps help Apple get them under their thumb like their buddies in the music industry?

My favorites are posts by people wanting an "all I can eat" iTunes subscription plan in HD and commercial free for about $XX, where $XX is typically well below the bill they pay now. Such dreams would be great for us consumers- I'm 100% with you on wanting that kind of thing- but why are the producers motivated to do that? What's in it for them?

Furthermore, I've posted it before in this kind of thread. Why would the companies that generally own our broadband pipes and sell us lucrative cable TV subscriptions choose to leave our broadband rates the same should something like this gain any legs? After all, Comcast- in my own case- would be pumping video via iTunes through "their" pipe so that I can reward Apple with a video subscription (that used to be Comcast's revenue stream). Why will Comcast allow that to happen? Won't they just raise broadband rates and/or raise them via tiered pricing to make up for losses on those quitting cableTV?

And since many have the broadband provider choice of 1 or 2 companies at most, where you going to go if they do?

Thus unfortunately, I don't see everyone else losing on this so that we and Apple can win. Instead, I would expect to see at least as much money flowing to the producers to motivate them to support this kind of thing, AND broadband rates going up or tiered rates showing up to bill more for greater amounts of download bandwidth (which would obviously come from people downloading all they can eat via an iTunes subscription). We consumers would have to be the source of all that money (to make up for no commercials, to make up for canceled cableTV revenues while still using cable broadband pipes, etc), which means paying less and getting more and ending up with something comparable to the entrenched solution seems unlikely.

I love the dream that we could get HD, commercial free, all we want for about half what we pay now via cable/satt. But it's almost certainly just a dream. Just put yourself in the other side's shoes, and you should see it too :(
 
This would be amazing if Apple could do 99 cent rentals with full support behind them of all the major networks and cable stations.

I ran the math before... at 99 cents an episode and a typical 22 episode season for the shows that I enjoy watching, it would cost 2/3 of my yearly subscription to the Comcast Cable service. Hopefully the 24 hour rental period would be enough I'd love to take shows to go the next day on my iPod Touch on the train ride to work, but I'm sure my finance might not watch them until the weekend when she has time. So if a show aired Wednesday, and I rented it Thursday at 8am, she would have until 8am Saturday to watch it on the Apple TV? That seems reasonable. Not as great as a DVR, but not as expensive either.

If Apple did a 7 day rental period that would be amazing.

They want to make at least as much as they make now from a current, well entrenched model. What motivates them to want to make less AND perhaps help Apple get them under their thumb like their buddies in the music industry?/QUOTE]

Let the people dream, then the bitching will commence when it doesn't happen.

Realistically though, if a channel makes 25 cents per subscriber on basic cable (which is being very generous!), and Apple takes 30%, as long as I rent 5 episodes a year from them at 99 cents than they've made the same amount of money.

If Netflix can be a **** ton cheaper than Blockbuster on a cost per disc basis, then there has to be a way to do it with television and digital distribution


Furthermore, I've posted it before in this kind of thread. Why would the companies that generally own our broadband pipes and sell us lucrative cable TV subscriptions choose to leave our broadband rates the same should something like this gain any legs? After all, Comcast- in my own case- would be pumping video via iTunes through "their" pipe so that I can reward Apple with a video subscription (that used to be Comcast's revenue stream). Why will Comcast allow that to happen? Won't they just raise broadband rates and/or raise them via tiered pricing to make up for losses on those quitting cableTV?

If you think people are going to make a mass exodus to Apple TV because of 99 cent rentals you're wrong.
 
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