Apple In Talks To Bring $0.99 TV Rentals To iTunes

An anonymous reader writes "On September first, Apple will reportedly announce a new iPod Touch with a front facing camera, a refreshed Apple TV, and more interestingly, the arrival of $0.99 TV episode rentals on iTunes."

Sept 1st, actually

[Johannes K.]

TFA seems to have the date wrong, at least: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/25/apple_sends_out_invitations_for_sept_1_special_event.html [appleinsider.com]

Re:Subscription service

[PopeRatzo]

I call bullshit. Where can you buy entire seasons of TV shows on DVD for $0.99? Name the store.

Netflix.

With a two to three-day turnaround time, I can get a dozen DVDs a month of TV shows (entire seasons' worth) for the basic Netflix subscription. If I step up the subscription, I can have several dozen DVDs come through my house, which I can then load on to my iPod Touch.

Plus, I can watch as many of the online TV seasons as I want. It comes to much, much, much less than $0.99 per episode.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

$0.99 for as little as 20 minutes of TV? Talk about insane pricing. I can go to Redbox and pick up a 180 minute movie for $1 to occupy my time. Hell you can go to Hulu and watch a good majority of recent TV free. Netflix only costs $9/month and has lots of quality streaming TV available for the same price as 9 episodes (180 minutes) of iTunes.

To me this looks like its priced as into an very infrequent purchase to those without a DVR.

Re:But it's only a dollar!

[mjwx]

I'd gladly shell out a buck for an episode of something- ANYTHING- that will keep Junior entertained and quiet

Good parenting will be cheaper and more effective over a long period of time.

If your crotchspawn knew there would be punishment for making a ruckus in the doctors office, eventually they will learn to stop doing it. Instead you have fallen back to the cathode teat of TV in order to replace your responsibility of raising a healthy child.

You could just try, you know...

Talking or playing with your child, feck knows that's what my mum did with me and I spent a lot of time in hospitals and doctors offices as a child.

Re:Hmm

[Nugoo]

How about using its position to prevent other online retailers from getting exclusive content? [nytimes.com] Not the same thing, I'll grant you, but certainly a step in that direction.

Outside the U.S.?

[Nishi-no-wan]

The article fails to mention anything about the annoying problem that all of these services (iTunes included) don't allow those of us outside the U.S. to view any of these shows. Stupid exclusive deals for possible future foreign releases prevent worldwide distribution and force many expats to turn to bit torrents.

If it's greed that drives the producers (and copyright holders), I do hope that they someday realize that they can earn more by allowing people outside of the U.S. timely access to their shows through legitimate channels (like iTunes, Hulu, etc.) than through exclusive tie-ups with other dinosaur companies that think the same way they do.