Apple wants to offer television subscribers customized channel lineups
Apple's anticipated full-fledged television set could offer Internet-based content subscriptions with customized channel lineups, if the company has its way. — Customized programming is said to be one of Apple's …
Context & Ripple Effects
The customization report extends an ambition Apple has been linked to since at least December 2009, when the Financial Times reported Apple was weighing an internet TV foray. Two years on, the rumored shape has sharpened from a vague set-top play into a full-fledged television set that would carry internet-based subscriptions with per-subscriber channel lineups — a direct challenge to the fixed bundle every US pay-TV operator sells.
The syndicated pickup by 9to5Mac, which ties the story to ongoing rumors about the iTV's chip supplier and a possible late-2012 launch, shows the hardware and the content model are being reported as one program rather than separate products. Both remain unconfirmed; no network or cable partner is named in any of the coverage.
First-order effects
- If Apple pursues customized lineups, cable operators and broadcast networks become the immediate counterparties: Apple needs their channels licensed individually, which forces each network to price carriage outside the bundle for the first time.
Second-order effects
- Pay-TV distributors would face pressure to offer their own pick-your-channels tiers to match what an Apple set could deliver, eroding the bundled pricing that subsidizes less-watched networks; a rival device maker matching the feature would accelerate that repricing.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward television distribution organized around subscriber-chosen packages delivered over the internet rather than fixed channel tiers — a textbook case of bundle cannibalization risk for the cable industry if a hardware gatekeeper controls the lineup interface.
The trend: Television delivery is drifting from operator-controlled channel bundles toward internet-based, subscriber-customized lineups, with device makers like Apple positioning themselves as the new gatekeepers.