November 27, 2024

Apple Television Appears 'Extremely Unlikely in the Near-term'

Posted August 24, 2012 at 3:18pm by iClarified · 9309 views
Following a meeting with Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer and SVP Eddy Cue, Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves issued a note saying that the Apple Television appears extremely unlikely in the near-term.

Fortune relays the note:

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Relative to the television market, Eddy Cue, Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services, reiterated the company's mantra that it will enter markets where it feels it can create great customer experiences and address key problems. The key problems in the television market are the poor quality of the user interface and the forced bundling of pay TV content, in our view. While Apple could almost certainly create a better user interface, Mr. Cue's commentary suggested that this would be an incomplete solution from Apple's perspective unless it could deliver content in a way that is different from the current multichannel pay TV model.

Unfortunately for Apple and for consumers, acquiring rights for traditional broadcast and cable network content outside of the current bundled model is virtually impossible because the content is owned by a relatively small group of companies that have little interest in alternative models for their most valuable content. The differences in regional broadcast content and the lack of scale internationally also create significant hurdles that do not seem possible to cross at this point.
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This couldn't be more different than a recent note from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek who says he believes the Apple Television is in full production.

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