Apple's Event rumored to be on 7 September: Unveiling iTV

Posted by Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP in Breaking News on August 25, 2010  |  0 Comments More from this author  |    |  Follow Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP on: Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter |

AppleInsider announces a new report that claims sources within the company claim have a confirmed date for Apple's event: September 7th.

The author, Peter Burrows wrote:

"Episodes will be available to Apple's rental service within 24 hours of their air dates and will be commercial-free, one of the people said.

Apple plans to hold a San Francisco Event Sept. 7, two weeks ahead of the start of the new prime-time TV season, to unveil the service and an updated line of entertainment products, two people said."

Bloomberg's article reports that the new Apple TV or iTV has a smaller hard drive than the earlier version that is aimed to let people stream content from iTunes.

Bloomberg refers as well to an earlier rumor of a 99 cent rental service:

Apple Inc.'s discussions to let iTunes users rent TV shows for 99 cents. Apple is in advanced talks with News Corp. to offer the service, according to three people familiar with the plan.

iTV will be the beginning of a "new direction":

The a la carte rental plan follows an abandoned effort to create a subscription television service.
Media companies didn’t want to endanger revenue from cable providers such as Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc.

RBC Capital's Bank said:

"A subscription service with Apple would have jeopardized the TV networks’ chances of getting higher retransmission fees from TV-system operators.

The four big broadcast networks -- Fox, NBC, CBS and ABC -- receive about $250 million a year in so-called retransmission fees industrywide, he said. That number will balloon to several billion dollars within five years.

If you’re running a TV network, you don’t want to upset the existing ecosystem broadly by starting a rival subscription service with Apple. You want to look for ways to drive incremental revenue.”

Yes and No.
It's a short term and qualitative solution that adds incremental value and revenue for both sides.

But No, it's not the long term sustainable solution from the TV network and overall industry point of view.
At one point the industry must react with new business models, new opportunities and less stubbornness.
Television is being digitalized, if you like it or not.