It has been rumored for over a year now that Apple is looking to break into TV streaming, it won’t be an open field for the company, established services includes the likes of Sling TV and PlayStation Vue with many major networks launching their standalone services. It was expected that the TV streaming service would be announced alongside the new Apple TV but that didn’t happen last year because apparently there are still issues to work out. ESPN President John Skipper has said that Apple is actually “frustrated” at its inability to finally launch the service.
Skipper made these comments in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he was asked if Apple has a path to being a player in the TV industry. ESPN president said that the network is having “ongoing conversations” with Apple on this matter, but “they have been frustrated by their ability to construct something which works for them with programmers,” adding that ESPN will continue to try and work with Apple on this.
When it became clear that a TV streaming service won’t be launched alongside the new Apple TV there were many reports that gave multiple reasons as to why the service isn’t quite ready yet. Some claimed that content providers are not happy with Apple’s proposed pricing for the service while other claimed that Apple ran into issues with bundling channels. The actual composition of a package, the act of deciding which channels will be included and which won’t be, is important to both Apple and the programmers and that might be proving to be an issue.
Apple has never really acknowledged that it’s going to come out with a TV streaming service, it’s kind of like an open secret now, just like its plans for an electric car. It really can’t be said for sure right now when Apple’s TV streaming service will be ready to be launched to the public.
Filed in . Read more about Apple TV.