Apple Pitching $30 iTunes Movie Subscriptions
1:42 pm, November 2nd, 2009, Ed Sutherland
Apple is reportedly talking with TV executives about delivering content via iTunes for $30 per month. The arrangement could start as early as 2010 and Disney may be the first studio to accept the offer.
According to MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka, TV heads are “intrigued” but no programmer has made a firm commitment. The plan would bypass Apple TV for iTunes, which the Cupertino, Calif. company claims has 65 million accounts.
Disney is most likely to take Apple up on its subscription plan because of the tight cooperation the two companies have developed. Disney became the first studio to sell programming via iTunes in 2005. After the studio bought Steve Jobs’ animation house Pixar, the Apple CEO became Disney’s largest single shareholder.
In August, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicted Apple could unveil a subscription TV plan that would appear for between $30 and $40 per month.
[Via MediaMemo and AppleInsider]
Posted by Ed Sutherland in News | Comment on this article
$30 per channel or a set of channels? Very much the industry is going this way, but $30 a channel doesn’t make it cheaper than cable… or more convenient.
Brady J. Frey, on November 2nd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
“The plan would bypass Apple TV for iTunes…”
Does this mean they’re actually considering not allowing this subscription service to work on Apple TV???
Jason, on November 2nd, 2009 at 2:46 pm
For me this would have to include things like The Learning Channel, the Discovery Channel, The Science Channel as well as the major networks.
One channel I would have no interest in would be MSNBC. Go figure.
OlsonBW, on November 2nd, 2009 at 5:50 pm
My minimum requirements is that they have to have a TiVo interface for iTunes. Sorry but the iTunes/FrontRow/AppleTV interface is just sad.
I have TiVo now. I left DirecTV for Cable because I couldn’t have HD TiVo with DirecTV despite DirecTV having better channels, etc. But when you have TiVo you really don’t care. TiVo IS the network as I don’t pay attention to what channel anything is on. If I run across something I like, I search for it by name and tell it to record it with either a season pass or just one time.
In comparison iTunes is a PITA. TiVo knows how to package it all together and what features to have. Apple still doesn’t have a clue.
Just my two cents.
No I don’t work for TiVo or any company connected with TiVo. I’m just a fanboy of TiVo.
OlsonBW, on November 2nd, 2009 at 7:01 pm
The headline says “Movies”, but the story is about TV shows.
iGenius, on November 3rd, 2009 at 7:50 am
$30 a month, no ads and covers all the current tv offerings plus hopefully some plans to get more, like showtime and HBO during the season. I’d be in for taking a look at that. but hopefully it would go onto the Apple tv as well as the desktop. just not only the Apple TV cause I think I might just put my new 27 inch on the media stand and ditch the old 20 inch tv for now.
Charli, on November 3rd, 2009 at 1:05 pm