While preparing for the release of its Apple TV new application this fall, the giant tech company is said to be talking to several TV broadcasters to get them to sign up for being featured in the new web-based subscription TV service. The new TV app will include shows from 25 channels in the US, notably ABC, CBS, and Fox. HBO Now, the Time Warner subscription-based online streaming service, which will be the first to broadcast the new Game of Thrones series, has signed an exclusive contract with Apple.
With all the big names included and promises of exclusive content circulated, Apple is rumored to have in mind a figure in the neighborhood of $30 or $40 per month for the subscription. However, there is one big name missing from the list, the Comcast-owned channel NBC. Although Apple’s negotiations with the company had started a year ago and were intended on including many of the Comcast channels in the Apple TV offer, as well as on setting a special high-speed access broadband network for Comcast, the result appears to be a negative one, the Wall Street Journal reports. This might be due to Comcast’s focus on its own web-connected gadget for TV streaming.
Apple had plans of launching a TV service since around 2009, and if the Comcast negotiations hinder the preparation of this autumn’s Apple TV release, the Cupertino-based company might give up on waiting for Comcast. It is not excluded that Comcast owners are themselves reluctant to signing up with Apple, given that a new streaming TV service is implicitly a threat to Comcast’s main cable subscription business.
New US government net neutrality regulations represent an additional complication to the signing of the contract between Apple and Comcast, because broadband streaming was part of Apple’s offer.
A deep-rooted change is occurring in the US television industry, as more and more viewers choose to give up cable TV and satellite in favor of online services like Netflix. To respond to this new demand, companies like Sony or Dish Network have launched more affordable TV services that deliver their programs through the internet instead of using cable or satellite.
image source: BGR