$.99 TV Rentals Not Enough

A new report from Bloomberg is saying that Apple will soon start renting television shows from a number of major networks for the low price of $.99. This is down from multi-dollar rentals that have been commonplace for awhile on iTunes. But even at a buck a show, is this going to be enough to make you ditch your cable subscription?

There are clear advantages to paying for what you want to watch. You don't have to follow a channel's schedule, requiring specific time commitments from you, you don't have commercial interruptions, and you don't have to essentially pay for content that you don't care about with big subscription plans.

On the other hand, episodes will only be available after they have aired on live TV; even if that's as soon as the show is over, you're going to be watching things later than those who are cable or satellite subscribers.

Now, the cheapest TV subscriptions generally run no less than $40/month, so if iTunes did carry all your favorite shows, and you watch less than 40 hours of TV a week, you could potentially save money. But there are a few other disadvantages to a la carte TV watching.

First, these iTunes rentals are likely to be streaming. Even if they are downloaded, they are rentals and will expire after 48 hours. If you have a DVR as many people do, you can store recorded shows for as long as you want. While you probably don't care to keep every episode of The Daily Show on your DVR, dramas might be worth watching again somewhere down the line (hence the success of series available on DVD).

Second, you can no longer just leave the TV on for background noise. Some people won't care about this, but sometimes I just like to put on something noncommittal like HGTV or The Food Network while I'm doing other things. I can watch or not watch at my leisure. With an a la carte plan, I would lose that ability.

Now, you could argue that this is exactly what Apple did with music, and it got a lot of people in the music industry up in arms. When you separate a song from an album, some will inevitably cry foul. If you have five great songs on an album and five crummy ones, you're more likely to only sell $5 worth of music rather than the $10 you'd sell for a full album. Likewise, the TV production companies could stand to lose a lot of money by not getting the same amount of exposure for their entire lineups.

I feel that this is ultimately the wrong way to go for two reasons:

1. I don't care about getting the Shopping Network, for example, but I like having access to a multitude of channels. I don't want to feel like I'm emptying my piggy bank every time the mood strikes me to watch TV.

2. Adoption will be slow, especially with satellite TV owners who are probably locked into a 2-year contract with an expensive cancellation fee (mine is over $250). I can't logically even consider using Apple as my source for TV when I already have to pay for it elsewhere.

Is it a good start? Yes. And $.99 is better than the prices we're being charged now. However, until entire channels becomes available a la carte--commercials and all--I don't see this replacing the traditional providers. And that's going to shake up the industry so much that it's going to take a lot of time before the major players are ready to play ball on Apple's court.