Microsoft postpones plans for web telly service
Content companies wanted too much money
Microsoft has postponed plans to launch an online subscription service for TV shows and movies because new content costs too much to license.
According to folk familiar with the talks between Microsoft and content providers, the high cost of the material made the service unviable, Reuters reports.
"They built Microsoft TV, they demoed it for us, they asked for rate cards but then said 'ooh ah, that's expensive'," alleged one executive involved in the talks.
At issue were MS' hopes to offer content at the same time as the material is broadcast or released in cinemas. Services like Netflix and the Amazon-owned Lovfilm generally post material not when it is first released or broadcast, but at the time pre-recorded media are made available, rights for which are much cheaper than those for initial release.
A shame, really, because initial plans for the service suggested a Microsoft service built around Kinect-like features for voice and gesture control.
As it stands, Microsoft's Xbox Live platform delivers various content through a host of apps to existing subscribers. ®
COMMENTS
"If the media industry made ALL their content EASILY available at AFFORDABLE prices"
Aaaah, but that would mean they couldn't afford to pay vacuous Hollywood mannequins of variable levels of acting ability the billions of dollars that they require to maintain the lavish lifestyles they have built for themselves on the basis that they fill the gap in American culture that is normally occupied in other countries by equally vacuous members of "Royal Families".
Personally I thought Pixar were on to the right idea by removing actors from the equation except they seem to have stumbled a bit there by inviting the very same actors to voices for their animated characters, hopefully not at the same exorbitant rates that said actors normally command for "live action" films.
The sooner I can stand in the checkout line and not be confronted with a dozen or more magazines shouting about the latest trials and tribulations of Brangelina or the current weight status of Kirstie Alley the better.
Not quite sure of that.
I think it was more an issue of maximusing revenue out of existing media and streaming tech from the Xbox, 'specially in light of the desktop launch for Kinect.
Either way, that guy that said "...but then [Microsoft] said 'ooh ah, that's expensive'..." needs to be shot, if he meant it the way it sounds. It sounds trite.
This media IS too expensive, and that's what's driving piracy, SOPA, The Pirate Bay and all the rest of that ungoldy copyright cluster-f*ck.
If the media industry made ALL their content EASILY available at AFFORDABLE prices there would be no need for TPB, torrents and so on.
The problem here is not MIcrosoft - it's Hollywood. People download pirate copies of films -- both old obscure titles and new blockbusters -- because either it's just not available anywhere, or it's simply too tedious to purchase, or expensive.
Expensive
"but then said 'ooh ah, that's expensive',"
A bit like how many of their customers behave when confronted with the price of a Windows upgrade.
Re: Expensive
Oh, very good. These forums need another trite comment. <Yawn>
App Store for TV
I have been saying this for years but somebody needs to make an "App Store" for TV, i.e., make a platform where creators of TV shows/movies can submit their content and get paid based on number of views.
This situation where Netflix/Hulu/Amazon/Microsoft/etc. go out and fight tooth-and-nail in backroom negotiations to get old episodes of Magnum PI is poor for everybody involved.
As soon as the platform exists and there are a few success stories of shows making much more money on this per-view basis, it will be the Next Big Thing and invalidate the need for cable/satellite TV and internet TV as we know it.
