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]
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
