Could Apple be pitching the TV industry on a new feature that would allow premium customers to skip commercials in exchange for payments? Well, if the latest rumor making the internet rounds is to believed, indeed they are. Jessica Lessien, formerly of the WSJ, currently launching a new “premium” tech publication, writes on jessicalessien.com:
In recent discussions, Apple told media executives it wants to offer a “premium” version of the service that would allow users to skip ads and would compensate television networks for the lost revenue, according to people briefed on the conversations.
Apple and television are two great things that rumor great together, so it’s no surprise story after story keeps surfacing about the ongoing ideas and negotiations between Cupertino and Hollywood. However, so many core problems remain in the go-to-market strategy – as elaborated by Steve Jobs himself years ago – that it remains tough to see how any of this will come together in a meaningful, Apple-like way.
One-off or even a few-off deals with local, monopoly cable companies doesn’t seem practical, nor does replacing them any time soon. Tim Cook says Apple keeps pulling the TV string, and there’s no telling where it will lead yet, but it makes the phone space look sane by comparison.
But hey, maybe we’ll all be happy with a model that removes commercials for money. That’s pretty much how HBO and equivalents work on the channel level now, who says it couldn’t work on the box level?
Source: jessicalessien.com
