As some of you might have heard, there are rumors that Apple is looking to offer a new web TV service and according to a report from Re/code, it seems that the Cupertino company is asking content producers to provide their own streams for their shows. This is versus Apple streaming the content themselves which would no doubt be more costly for the company.
That being said it doesn’t come as a complete surprise because as it stands, content providers such as Fox, CBS, Disney, and etc. all have their own streams that rely on delivery networks such as EdgeCast, so in some ways this shouldn’t really change anything for most content providers. At the same time by getting content producers to supply their own streams, it should not hold up the launch of the rumored web TV service.
However it seems that there are some network executives who aren’t too thrilled about the prospect as it basically means that they are paying the streaming costs on a platform promoted by Apple, as opposed to promoting the network itself, so it’s kind of like they’re paying Apple to promote Apple’s TV services.
TV sources however, claim that Apple executive Eddy Cue has been in negotiations with content providers and has apparently told them that Apple will do what Apple does best, which is creating hardware and software, and leaving tasks such as the streaming infrastructure to companies that already specialize in it. In any case take it with a grain of salt for now, but hopefully we will learn more about it during WWDC later this year.
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