I stopped putting a lot of stock in TV-related Apple rumors awhile ago, so I don’t want to over-analyze today’s edition, by former Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Lessin, citing unnamed “media executives” that Apple is in talks with the networks about some sort of combined live-and-on-demand video service via Apple set-top box (or perhaps a TV). But for the sake of conversation, here are a few speculative thoughts on what they might be talking about.
Apple already offers ala carte downloads of TV content via iTunes, so presumably what we’re talking about here is a streaming service, probably via subscription. Recreating the full cable bundle wouldn’t make a lot of sense for Apple (and would likely be cost-prohibitive) so, again presumably, we’re talking about some sort of smaller bundle of channels or (less likely) an ala carte channel offering. For the most part, those deals would simply be a matter of price…