Apple TV a sort of cable TV a la carte?
Cory Bergman January 11th, 2007
What do you watch on cable TV that’s not available on a HDTV antenna? Of those shows, how much would it cost to buy them on iTunes every month? Probably a lot less than your monthly cable bill. So with the addition of Apple TV, which connects iTunes with your TV set, even in high def, will people begin to drop their cable service? A few, perhaps.
10 Comments Add your own
1. Uncle Rupert | January 12th, 2007 at 2:35 am
Check out TVU Player and Sopcast if you are a sports fan. I watched the NFL games on the NFL Network from Korea. Why? Because my cable provider and the NFL, both monopolies, could not come to an agreement.
How many thousands (tens of thousands, at least) are watching this stuff online instead of paying the extra packages? We all know BitTorrent has lead to milions of files (movies, tv shows) being swapped each day.
2. Hussman | January 12th, 2007 at 6:57 am
Rupert is right… if the iTV does torrent files, well then that’s pretty much it then.
3. Stone | January 12th, 2007 at 7:28 am
I think MIcrosoft’s IPTV client will be a bigger threat to cable and satellite. The setup now has the capability to carry many more HDTV channels than cable AND you can record more than two channels on their DVR. The Apple TV is okay, but if you want to stay legal and buy all your content from iTunes, it will add up quick.
4. Jesse Thorn | January 12th, 2007 at 9:49 am
I haven’t got an Apple TV, but I do have an S-Video cable from my computer to my TV… and I don’t have cable. The future is now :).
5. Photog on Fire | January 12th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
I think Stone is right on. Microsoft’s IPTV + XBOX Live delivers far more content (some in HD which iTunes does not offer yet) without having to download to a computer and then stream it to your AppleTV. The nextgen XBOX will sport a big hard drive to store your media (AppleTV not so much). Apple may be about to blow up in the wireless phone market but I believe MS has the right formula for home entertainment dominance.
6. discreet_chaos | January 12th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Pardon my ignorance and snarky demeanor, but most of the shows listed in the linked article are available for free from the network websites, so will this Apple gadget only play things that you’ve bought from their store?
7. Dan | January 12th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
The problem for content creators is this;
For decades on TV and Radio, people got to
sample stuff, then decide what they liked best and
buy it (recently for TV shows with DVDs and now
online delivered via iTunes). With Radio same thing.
Trouble is now, people are listening to less and less
broadcast radio so sampling of new artists and songs
is much less, thus trouble selling these artists into
new consumers hands. Corporate radio’s attempt to
homogenize their playlist is also a problem there.
Same scenario for TV shows as network viewership falls. If people aren’t watching broadcast TV and cable, they won’t know which shows they like best enough to purchase. So marketing will play a greater roll in getting sampling. Maybe free HD-DVD mailings of the first two or three episodes of a season might be a decent idea, or the same thing with iTunes downloads. Bottom line is, I think you guys are correct, people will definitely re-think their $80 a month cable bills. It’s just crazy.
Dan
8. Dan | January 12th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
discreet, I think you are correct, unfortunately.
It doesn’t appear that if you played a DVD, (or when
the drive is available, a hi def DVD) it doesn’t look like
it will play out wirelessly to your TV using AppleTV.
This will most definitely be a less useful product
in my opinion, if this is true.
Dan
9. Tony S | January 12th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
The cable a la carte plan went disastrously wrong in may counties, anyway. Repairmen were allegedly going into houses and dumping ice cream on top of TV sets. They hadn’t read their work orders carefully and thought they said “a la mode.”
10. Andrew | January 28th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
I think that this is a win - win for everyone. It depends on what the individual needs. For my family, we didn’t watch much TV and only had one or two shows that we cared about. So it made more sense to drop cable, and buy season passes for the shows. Then if some other shows come about, such as educational or kids shows then we can add that content as well. We can podcast all of our news for free if we really want to “watch” the news. However, I am not a big sports fan and it isn’t important to me that I can watch the games. So in this arena iTunes simply can’t compete with MCE. Some of the features to be far exceed those of iTunes/AppleTV. Having said this, it may not be the case that people want an Xbox 360 or even a next gen console in their living room simply for the purpose of delivering their digital content. There are other options, which are cheaper than AppleTV, but they lack some one board qualities that would be nice. In the end, the beauty of this is that there are many options out there. I didn’t even mention the Wii. I know not many people are using the Wii for a digital entertainment device, but as the Wii adds more channels, including the Internet browser, and the internet add more and more free second-day content, it makes sense to use the Wii for a pseudo-digital entertainment device as well. Again, more options means better for everyone. Except, however, the cable companies. Traditional cable is dying, they will have to add something different to keep consumers.
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