Apple Asks TV Programmers to Supply Their Own Streams for Apple’s TV Service

Apple wants the TV guys to provide their shows for its proposed streaming video service. But that’s not the only thing Apple wants from the TV guys: It wants them to provide the streams, too. Apple is asking TV networks to handle the responsibility and cost of the streaming infrastructure associated with its Web video service, industry executives say. That issue is one of many unresolved questions about the proposed service, which Apple would like to launch next fall but can’t until it lines up programming deals.

Apple’s proposal isn’t necessarily surprising, since video services that stream via Apple apps today -- including some of the networks Apple wants to work with, like Fox, CBS and Disney -- all “stand up” their own streams, by working with content delivery networks like EdgeCast. Streaming video costs aren’t prohibitive: Delivery to your living room runs an average of around five cents per hour per stream, says Tom Morgan, a video industry veteran now running streaming service Net2TV. That said, outside of Netflix, which streams billions of hours of video every three months, most streaming services haven’t experienced significant demand to date. The notion of paying their own freight for a heavily promoted Apple service has given executives pause, sources say.