HBO might be coming to iTunes, with flexible pricing

@ Caleb & Beau - my original comments:

@ Beau, if you don't have cable tv, you probably shouldn't be buying items from ITunes, your money probably goes to more important purchases.

This logic stems from United States statistics (my apologies if you don't live in the USA) that states 64-87% of households subscribe to cable or satellite TV service. The flucuation in percentage is based on average annual income 15K @64% up to 75k @87%. The number one reason why households don't have cable tv? Too expensive, thus the analysis that one would be led to believe that because you don't have cable television, you have more important things you need to spend your income on before cable television. This may or may not be your specific situation, but now you both will have a better idea of where this logic was derived from.


@Caleb - You really can't watch ANY show that you want, Apple doesn't offer shows from every channel, not to mention how many of those Itunes downloadable shows can you watch in high definition on your television?

@Beau - That's an excellent cost benefit analysis that you put together. However, you would ONLY purchase HBO shows? You don't buy any from other networks and you don't want any from other networks? How did you determine that you were a fan of these HBO series, did you originally watch them on TV or did you just randomly start downloading them from torrents?

@Beau - I said you could view ANY television show from the networks website. ANY may have been a slight exaggeration, however ANY of the large networks offer this and many of the smaller networks as well. A show would have to be REALLY unpopular to not have a streaming option on their networks website and that same show probably wouldn't be available for download via ITunes either. However, you're telling me that this isn't possible, yet in your first post you said you didn't watch cable tv? Which one is it?

Think outside the box with regard to the definition of "flexible" pricing. As we've seen with ITS movie rentals, Apple is willing to make concessions in order to get the ATV up and running, which will be necessary in order to sustain growth and lead the TV 2.0 market. The convergance of our Mac's, iPhone's, and T.V.'s is inevitible and I think Apple eventually wants to become a network provider, and compete with Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, etc. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see some sort of subscription based model arise out of this negotiation; it would serve as a test of the market's appetite for such a service. It would also be benficial for HBO as it allows them to leverage their main asset of original content in an icreasingly VOD world. As was mentioned above, no a la carte currently exists for "premium" cable content, but it's what the market wants and why ITS has been so successful.

@ Beau, if you don't have cable tv, you probably shouldn't be buying items from ITunes, your money probably goes to more important purchases.

@ Allan, I do realize that NBC shows are free and therefore my post said "It doesn't make sense." It doesn't make sense for HBO or for regular cable channels. Especially now, when you can view ANY cable televison program directly on their website. I agree with you, I don't understand why anyone would pay any televison shows.

The only thing that makes a little sense if you were to buy a whole season of a show as each network's website generally only keeps the last few recent episodes and then deletes them at the end of the series. This way you can keep the series forever and play it on your apple tv.

Why, why, WHY??? do content providers believe their shows are worth more than $2 an episode? Why can I get HBO for an extra $10-20 a month on my cable subscription and get unlimited access to all of their content, yet they think that I should pay more than $2 for each episode on a downloadable a la carte model?

Ditto the networks. NBC seems to think that a show is worth more than $2 an episode. Yet I can watch the same thing for free (with commercials) on broadcast television (or on their stupid website, for that matter) Does NBC *really* net over a dollar from me individually viewing their show on broadcast television or their website? Highly unlikely.

Yet despite the overpriced content, I've still spent a respectable amount of money on NBC shows in iTunes over the past couple of years. This year I've spent nothing. Zero. Zilch.

Nice move, NBC. You overcharged me and then spit in my face. You lose.

@ Allan: with HBO being a "premium" channel, their shows *might* be worth $2/episode. Not more. And doesn't "premium" here really mean "without advertising?"

Note to HBO: don't be like NBC.

This makes no sense. You folks do realize that the average cost of an HBO subscription for cable/satelitte providers is $5-10 per month? Thefore, why would anyone pay $3-5 for ONE show, when you can have all of them and HBO on demand for the cost of 2 shows? Pass.

Please HBO show iTunes some love this would be so great. My plan for the destruction of cable is just getting sweeter by the day.

There are already shows on iTunes outside the $1.99 pricing. For example, NOVA on PBS is $4.99 for an hour episode.

NBC will probably have a fit over this... but HBO is already a "premium" channel and it really would be not surprising to see them get a little bit more $ per download.

And IMO, worst 1 hr show on HBO > any 1 hr show on NBC. So I'd pay a higher price for that if I were to download.