Rumors are starting to fly around about the next iteration of Apple’s somewhat neglected set-top box venture that is the Apple TV. The Wall Street Journal and others are reporting that the Cupertino company has been courting standard and cable networks to provide content, via iTunes, for the Apple TV. The new content is purportedly going to be bundled in small packages and target consumers who only watch a few channels yet often have a 300+ channel cable package, and the accompanying bill. Apple would pay somewhere between $1-2 per subscriber to broadcast companies providing content from standard channels — ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX — and $3-5 per subscriber for cable channels. The WSJ reports that $30 could get you between 15-30 channels on your Apple TV, commercial free. No details on how soon after initial airing the content would become available or how things like live sports would be handled. How about it? Would any of you be interested in a service like this instead of standard cable?
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