It’s been rumored for many months that Apple is working on a TV subscription service for delivering streaming video content. The Cupertino company hasn’t been able to make progress for quite some time due to licensing deals and revenue concerns from Hollywood studios.
A recent report reveals that CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said no to providing content to Apple about a year ago. Not only that, but Moonves told Steve Jobs that he didn’t know anything about the TV business. What Moonves really meant was that Apple is planning to disrupt the way the world consumes video content, and that scares CBS to death.
“I told Steve, ‘You know more than me about 99 percent of things but I know more about the television business,’ ” Moonves said, citing his concerns about providing content to a service that could disrupt CBS’ existing revenue streams. Moonves said Jobs, in characteristic fashion, strongly disagreed with his assessment.
Moonves calls Netflix and Hulu “friends,” but he decided to not accept Steve Jobs’ proposal. Netflix and Hulu have bent over backwards to networks like CBS, so it’s no surprise that Moonves would take sides with online distributors that don’t require a re-working of how the industry operates.
Unlike other companies, Apple refuses to let someone else set the agenda. If content providers like CBS don’t realize that and just go along for the ride, we could start seeing a lot of ‘old media’ companies fall by the wayside as Apple reinvents the TV and movie industry.
[via The Hollywood Reporter] [image courtesy of Bloomberg)
