Would you pay $30 a month to watch TV via iTunes?
That’s the pitch Apple has been making to TV networks in recent weeks. The company is trying to round up support for a monthly subscription service that would deliver TV programs via its multimedia software, multiple sources tell me. The industry finds this idea both tempting and terrifying.
Well look at that: EMI Music Group, which had been working on a licensing deal with music start-up Grooveshark but ended up suing it instead, now has a licensing deal with Grooveshark after all.
Poor John Squires. The Time Inc. SVP seems like an affable fellow. So what has he done to deserve this impossible task–figuring out a digital strategy for Time Warner’s publishing unit? Or, to put it in Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore’s words, figuring out “how to put the genie back in the bottle”?
Want to watch nerd-favorite “The Fifth Element” via Netflix’s awesome streaming service? OK, but hurry up–the movie will disappear from the service on New Year’s Day. Want to rent the excellent George Clooney corporate thriller “Michael Clayton” via iTunes? Too late! The movie was there, but now it’s not. Wait a minute: Hadn’t big media finally gotten religion and agreed to give us, the demanding consumers, everything we want, whenever we want it? Nope.
TheStreet.com is worth about $100 million. So is The Huffington Post. But investors are much more optimistic about one of these Web businesses.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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