CBS and Disney are considering participating in Apple’s plan to offer TV subscriptions over the Internet, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter.
Apple’s potential new competitor to cable and satellite TV could, in at least some scenarios, offer access to some TV shows from a selection of major US networks for a monthly fee. Apple is said to be pushing to complete licensing deals and hopes to introduce the service in 2010.
Should Apple be successful in signing up enough networks to launch a viable service, it could ultimately alter the economics of the business by undermining the big bundles of channels that cable, satellite and telecoms have traditionally sold in packages to subscribers.
A spokesman for DirecTV told the Journal, “It’s difficult to gauge how competitive they will be without seeing the packaging, presentation and execution.”
The video strategy is part of Apple’s plan to overhaul its iTunes, store but the company faces an uphill battle assembling a critical mass of TV networks to sign up.
Many media companies, including News Corp., Viacom, Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting and Discovery Communications, appear to be opposed to or leaning away from signing on, at least to Apple’s initial proposals, according to people familiar with the matter.
CBS, however, is considering offering programs from both the CBS and CW networks, according to Journal sources.
Disney, meanwhile, is considering including programs from ABC, Disney Channel and ABC Family networks. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs is Disney’s largest individual shareholder and sits on the company’s board.
In at least some versions of the proposal, Apple would pay media companies about $2 to $4 a month per subscriber for a broadcast network like CBS or ABC, and about $1 to $2 a month per subscriber for a basic-cable network, people familiar with the proposals told the Journal.
But Apple’s TV proposal may be changing as the company woos networks. An initial version of the proposal had envisioned selling access to advertising-free shows from a bundle of top cable and broadcast networks with a consumer price tag of $30 a month.
It is unclear how many shows from each network could be made available through the Apple service since networks’ rights to TV shows online are snarled in a tangle of licenses with the studios that produce them.
