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Apple 'in advanced talks' about 99-cent TV rentals service

By | August 24, 2010, 4:32pm PDT

Summary: Apple appears to be finally beefing up its online rental service within iTunes as the Cupertino company is reported to be “in advanced talks” with News Corporation about 99-cent TV episode rentals.

Apple appears to be finally beefing up its online rental service within iTunes as the Cupertino company is reported to be “in advanced talks” with News Corporation about 99-cent TV episode rentals.

According to Bloomberg, “three people familiar with the plan” have detailed a plan that would allow 48-hour rentals of selected TV shows. It looks like it might only be Fox at first. But if you get tired of House and Fringe, never fear as ABC and CBS programming could be on the way too.

Currently, most TV shows available on iTunes have to be bought, either for $1.99 as a single episode (when available) or with a slightly-discounted “season pass.” The latter is typically popular with stable hits like Lost (when it was still on the air).

There are some free episodes of major shows already available on iTunes from a variety of networks, but it is usually limited to season premieres, pilot episodes or programs that need some ratings help.

$0.99 for a 48-hour rental of a 30- to 60-minute episode might seem a bit steep, especially if you can still stream recent content on a network’s website, Hulu or Netflix. But hopefully this would mean iTunes would keep older episodes up longer (at least a whole season), it would be another place to turn to as Hulu will be charging for streaming back episodes of popular current hits as well. Episodes are also expected to be commercial-free and posted within 24 hours of airing.

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Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

Disclosure

Rachel King

Rachel King has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted in this blog.

Biography

Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive in San Francisco. Before serving as a contributing editor at ZDNet in New York City for two years, she previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish America Magazine and the New York Daily News, among others. Rachel has a B.A. in Mass Communications and History from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, where she served as art director for the student magazine, Plated.

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RE: Apple 'in advanced talks' about 99-cent TV rentals service
non-biased 31st Aug 2010
It certainly isn't a perfect scenario but I can see potential. Would I pay $0.99 per episode to watch what I can get OTA for free, not normally. I would love to dump my cable company but as pointed out in one of the examples above it would end up costing more if you got straight able for all your TV viewing. I have not looked into it but here is a scenario I would more than likely consider. Setup a media center with multi tuner DVR to record all the OTA network broadcasts I want to see. Then I could rent individual episodes of shows that are not available OTA. For example I could get the entire series of an original series on say Showtime or HBO and not pay an subscription fee for the channel and everything else it has that I don't watch for a couple of month to get the show. Of course as soon as we start streaming a majority of our view choices the cable companies are going to start putting caps on our broadband service.
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Interesting......
James Quinn 24th Aug 2010
I pay for cable like a lot of people I suppose but I always wondered how much am I getting or better put what value is it too me? If I could break down per show per month what I'm spending on cable and I suspect I'm being ripped off in this then if I could find a cheaper way to meet my needs then I think I would go for it. I would seriously LOVE to tell my cable company to take their packages and place them where .. Well you know:)

Pagan jim
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One word: Hulu
wackoae 24th Aug 2010
I have DTV, but lately, I'm seriously considering cutting the (sat) plug. I'm just waiting for Hulu to get better quality image (ie: 1080p x/h.264) and hopefully a $10 monthly fee.

I usually end up watching new episodes a few weeks later (DVR) anyway ... so not having a program on release week is not an issue. Also, I would probably watch shows I don't watch (or TiVo) today if I could watch them when ever I feel like it.
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Could you convert a rented movie to other devices, not apple tv not apple supported, as many youtube users do with the help of ifunia youtube video converter? Would you purchase a video converter or dvd ripper with the 99-Cent TV Rental Service?
http://www.ifunia.com/dvd-to-appletv-converter-mac.html
Only apple can make people think this is a good idea. Lots of people sit there and think "That's great. I'll dump the cable TV and only pay for what I actually want to watch" lets see now, if I watch 3 hours of tv each night, thats only $98.97 per month. More than $30 less than the $129 I'm currently paying. Oh, wait, What if the kids want to watch some in the afternoon? So let?s add 2 hours a day for sesame street and cartoons. That?s about $60. Don?t forget the wife?s soaps, Dr Phil and Oprah. $60, still not that bad. At least I don?t have to put up with the cable company and all those channels I don?t watch. So now we?re all set. We?ll just download the shows and? Wait! What?s that, I dumped Comcast and my internet connection was part of my cable package. So I?ll just get a new connection from DSL or FiOS. Best non-introductory rate I can find in my area is $39 per month. So there, now I showed them. I?m free of the cable company monopoly. And I?m only paying $218.97 to Apple and $39 to Verizon to get the same thing I was getting from Comcast for $129. Of course I don?t have a home phone now because that was included as part of my cable package. But hey, I?m free of the evil cable monopoly and it only costs me $257.97 a month. Now I?ll just sit back and watch? WHAT!!! iTunes isn?t going to carry ?America?s Got Talent?. Oh well, maybe I?ll just read a book. Hey, maybe this isn?t such a bad idea after all!!
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@Scubajrr - finally someone pointing out the idiocy of this proposal, the same goes for services like HULU, yeah they will charge $10.00 a month but who is providing the bandwidth necessary for the service, not them. Besides why would I want to pay Apple for what my cable company provides for free in its on demand packaging and I have two options, one use on demand TV or on demand internet for the same materials and TV shows are free and are retained for the full season. Getting this stuff from Apple is only doing one thing, placing a lot of personal information in a very large repository of financial information, and like MS being a target for malware, Apple has become the target for the criminal element that wants to steal this kind of information, but unlike MS, Apple has a reputation of not informing users when their databases have been breached. Anyone thinking their information is safe with Apple, then why during Black Hat conferences are Apple OS's the first to be hacked. Until someone shows me how I can get the bandwidth that I now enjoy with my cable provider and the speed 25 Mb/s for less, then I am not falling for Apple being a provider of any information to me, my cable company has a pretty good music library as well and is cheaper than Apple for the same product.
@Rndmacts
Try knowing what you are talking about before you post. First, please post which "black hat convention" OSX was the first to fall at. And please say P2O so you can evince your ignorance even further.
Second, if you believe you are getting 25Mb/s from your cable company, you are even more gullible than you come off here.
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Way better than free
erikswanson 25th Aug 2010
How soon until Comcast starts charging 99 cents for every show I DVR?
apple shows again that its a MARKETING company 1st and foremost. to those that buy this c**p, you are truly the foolish people we all like to make fun of!! have you ever heard of a vcr? dvd? are you too lazy to use them?
dont add to the hype and say this is revolutionary!!! its only repackaged by apple. recorded programing wa and is free. lol the few fools bring this on ALL of us. ya, lets pay for something on ABC thats already free!!! DUH!!!
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Renting TV shows, are you serious?
omdguy 25th Aug 2010
Most crap on TV isn't worth watching, let alone buying or renintg (The Office is my exception), which if I wanted to, I could watch for free on nbc.com.

Not only that, but you get to experience what wonderful bit of software called iTunes to do this!!!

I can't wait to watch the iTards handing over their credit cards for this!

Pat
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and the shows I do watch are few and far between, and mostly on History Channel or Travel Channel- I don't even know what's going to be on until it's on, and I'm not missing anything.
I'm not an Apple hater, by any means, but I don't think I'll be taking them up on the rentals, especially since if not for my family, I would only have my cable company for internet anyway.
www.dfwsupergeek.com
I would never pay 99 cents to watch the crap that they call television!
It certainly isn't a perfect scenario but I can see potential. Would I pay $0.99 per episode to watch what I can get OTA for free, not normally. I would love to dump my cable company but as pointed out in one of the examples above it would end up costing more if you got straight able for all your TV viewing. I have not looked into it but here is a scenario I would more than likely consider. Setup a media center with multi tuner DVR to record all the OTA network broadcasts I want to see. Then I could rent individual episodes of shows that are not available OTA. For example I could get the entire series of an original series on say Showtime or HBO and not pay an subscription fee for the channel and everything else it has that I don't watch for a couple of month to get the show. Of course as soon as we start streaming a majority of our view choices the cable companies are going to start putting caps on our broadband service.

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