[Update: Showtime has officially announced its standalone service coming in July for $10.99/month on Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch ahead of the July 12th season premiers of several shows.]
CBS is expected to announce a standalone subscription version of its premium network Showtime on Apple TV “as early as today or Thursday,” according to a report from Variety. The standalone version of Showtime will allow cord-cutters to pay for access to the channel through Apple TV without requiring a cable subscription. The news comes as Yahoo revealed that it will be the first to stream an NFL game globally for free to set-top boxes, mobile apps, and more…
Apple TV currently features a Showtime Anytime channel which allows cable subscribers that pay for packages that include the channel to access on-demand content through the set top box.
The rumored service, however, is expected to use the same model as the recently launched HBO Now. This allows Apple TV owners to subscribe to the premium network for a monthly fee through iTunes, $14.99 in the case of HBO, without the need for cable service.
The report adds that CBS is expected to launch exclusively through Apple at first just as HBO did with its standalone service. Aside from CBS planning to bring a standalone version of Showtime to the Apple TV, the network’s CEO Les Moonves said he expects CBS to participate in Apple’s upcoming web TV service as well.
However, we’re not anticipating an announcement of that service at next week’s Apple keynote at WWDC. A new version of the Apple TV hardware, though, is set to be revealed next week alongside an SDK that will allow developers to create apps for the platform.
In other streaming news, cord-cutters saw another milestone today as Yahoo won the rights to stream an upcoming NFL game around the world for free. Yahoo, which has a channel on Apple TV and mobile apps on the iPhone and iPad, will live stream the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars game. Yahoo is believed to have paid at least $10 million for the rights to stream the football game being played in London on October 25th.
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Kind of cool but if all these networks do the same thing, then there are going to be a LOT of $14.95-ish payments that can most likely end up costing more than your cable subscription…
People who are thinking this will be the same as Cable for less are deluding themselves.
If you’re a heavy TV watcher, then cable/satellite will likely continue to be the best avenue for you for the foreseeable future. The “buffet” of TV viewing.
But for people with narrower viewing habits; who only watch selected channels or programs, unbundled services like this will save them lots of money each month.
10.99 is cheaper than what Directv charges. It’s also super easy to turn on and off as you want in this model – no dealing with calling to have a channel removed. I have Directv but prefer flexibility of HBONow (which is also $2 cheaper a month than what Directv charges).
Yahoo had to pay $10 million one fricken game? Wow…That price is just outrageous since the NFL is a non-profit. Kind of wakes you wonder why they would even pay that much. Sad. I wish sports would be better at streaming and not have these archaic blackout rules for streaming (looking at you MLB).
I had to laugh when I found out the NFL was supposedly a non-profit. Fortunately other folks with actual power to do something about took notice too. As a result the NFL dropped their tax-exempt status in April.
One thing that is good about the NFL though is their profit sharing — all the teams get a split, so it’s not boring and the same old shit every year like baseball.
…just like baseball? Baseball has far less “repeat winners” than the NFL does and the parity into the post season has been nice. …the Royals and Pirates certainly are a good examples. You haven’t seen teams like the Browns, Tennessee, Jacksonville, Miami, etc making it in a long time either.
Lee, my Chicago Cubs say hello.
I think soon the new way to get pay TV will be to subscribe to different services at different times. Since binge watching is the new normal, I’ll be able to get HBO Now for a few months, watch all the shows and movies I want, then cancel my subscription and get Showtime or Netflix for awhile. Since Apple allows easy canceling of subscriptions, this will be really easy.
The new battle will be to consistently produce quality content or live events so that viewers stay subscribed year-round. Sling TV will be great for me during College Basketball season, but the rest of the year I really don’t care about ESPN or any of the other networks in that package.
It won’t just be a la carte, but also easily deciding when you want service.
But the point is you get to pick which ones you will really use. Instead of paying to for them all
Shouldn’t the title be Showtimes plans standalone subscription channel for Apple TV?
awesome news – time to dump cable subscription soon !
Would assume this also means CBS and Aplle reached a deal for Apple upcoming TV streaming service.
I hope when the TV streaming service is announced Aple offers a discount for bundling premium movie channels together.
I guess this will be just like the iOS App Store, where in the beginning, every paid App was $9.99, because no one knew what the going rate would be. The market quickly normalized, and now $0.99 is way more common than $9.99.
Eventually it will not cost you $10/mon for any 1 specific channel. I just wish they didn’t need the growing pains and data first. I can tell you right now that I wouldn’t even consider a Movie channel like Showtime at that price. If it were, $1.99 or even $2.99 a mon….a might sign up and forget about it. They would make more money, going hard and trying to get everyone.
I don’t think this will last very long……The cost of each and every individual channel one would like is just too high.