TV rights may scupper iTV dreamings

With Apple seemingly set on rebranding the Apple TV with the same brand as the UK’s second-oldest television broadcaster, ITV, it looks like the company may still have some fuss and botheration before it can convince broadcasters to truly join the iOS Internet TV network party (assuming such dreams don’t die the death through net neutrality).

In the same week as Disney CEO, Bob Iger, steps up to the plate to call the iPad a ‘game-changer’, it seems broadcasters aren’t totally sure they want the game changed.

A report claims rights holders of TV content are charging firms up to three times as much for a license to offer media via the iPad, a report informs.

MobiTV CMO Ray DeRenzo says broadcasters fear alienating their existing distribution partners, so feel obliged to charge top dollar. “It is three to four times more expensive to license the same piece of content for a tablet than for a mobile phone,” he told Mobile Entertainment.

“I can programme a package of content on mobile and make it available for $10 a month in the US, but if I take that same lineup of content and make it available on the tablet, I’m going to have to charge more like $30. And at $30, there is not a market for that product.”

With Apple reportedly set to offer some form of hybrid cloud-based TV content-cum-network via the future ITV box, does the $30 charge also represent an approximation as to the monthly charge Apple will have to make for access to all-you-can-eat content?

Disney’s Iger has a more positive vision, saying “Our gut is that cannibalization is negligible and that people still do most of their viewing on bigger screens.”