Apple Plots Its TV Assault
Apple Inc. is moving forward with its assault on television, following up on the ambitions of its late co-founder, Steve Jobs. — In recent weeks, Apple executives have discussed their vision for the future of TV with media executives at several large companies …
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's television push has been building for two years: the company was already weighing an internet TV foray back in December 2009, and an October 2011 analysis asked what would actually come next for Apple in television after years of the hobbyist-scale Apple TV box. The Wall Street Journal's report now adds the missing piece — according to its sourcing, Apple executives have been sitting down with media executives at several large content companies to pitch their vision for TV's future.
The timing matters because the talks follow Steve Jobs' death in October 2011, and the biography published that month quoted him saying he had finally 'cracked' television — giving the reported discussions both strategic weight and a succession narrative. Whether Apple is selling a device, a service, or both remains unconfirmed; what is new is that the conversations have moved from internal ambition to external negotiation with the companies that control the programming.
First-order effects
- Media executives at the large content companies Apple has approached now face a direct choice between engaging with Apple's vision and protecting existing pay-TV distribution economics that fund their programming.
Second-order effects
- Cable and satellite distributors — whose bundles supply most programmer revenue — become the defensive front line, since any Apple deal that bypasses or reprices their carriage relationships forces them to renegotiate their own position with content owners.
Third-order effects
- If Apple converts these discussions into a product or service, the negotiations become a template for whether premium TV content reaches consumers through open app-platform economics or stays inside operator-controlled bundles — the structural question every subsequent entrant into connected-TV distribution inherits.
The trend: Consumer technology platforms are moving from making TV accessories to negotiating directly for TV content, putting the traditional pay-TV bundle under pressure from the living room inward.