Apple is Talking to TV Programmers About Its Own Web TV Service
Apple has spent years circling the TV business, without ever really getting into the TV business. Now it may be ready to try again. — Industry executives say Apple is in talks with TV programmers about deals …
Context & Ripple Effects
After years of circling TV without closing deals, Apple is back at the table with programmers to license channels for its own web TV service — reviving an effort that later crystallized as a planned ~25-channel September launch anchored by ABC, CBS and Fox. The talks matter because Apple's approach has been to shift burden onto partners, asking networks in follow-up negotiations to carry the infrastructure and streaming costs themselves.
The arc since this report shows why deal-making stayed hard: Apple's demand to include local TV stations complicated negotiations with the broadcast networks, and by 2016 it was still negotiating, pivoting toward a TV guide for Apple TV and iOS that aggregates in-app content while separately building original production muscle through Hollywood development teams aimed at competing with Netflix.
First-order effects
- TV programmers gain (or face) a new distribution bidder with Apple's installed base behind it — every channel that signs on sets the template for bundle pricing and terms for those still holding out.
- Apple's hardware-plus-services pitch to consumers gets a live-TV layer, but only if programmers accept Apple's cost-shifting terms rather than standard carriage economics.
Second-order effects
- Networks that refuse Apple's terms push viewers toward rival bundles, while those that comply set a precedent other distributors can cite when negotiating their own skinny bundles.
- Cable and satellite distributors lose pricing leverage if Apple lands marquee broadcast channels at consumer-friendly rates, accelerating pressure on traditional pay-TV packaging.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, TV distribution consolidates around a few platform aggregators — Apple among them — with programmers ceding both carriage economics and the viewer relationship, which is exactly what Apple's later TV-guide aggregation and original-content pushes point toward.
The trend: Pay TV is unbundling into platform-operated streaming packages, with Apple trying to convert its device base into carriage leverage over programmers.