There is a rumor being floated around the web today that Apple has been approaching the television networks with an eye to creating television subscriptions through their iTunes service. Word has it that the price of the subscription will be around the $30.00 range.

Sure you can already get complete seasons of individual shows through iTunes but this is a totally different beast. You would be getting the networks whole output of network programming.

All I can say to this is – I sure hope they pull it off.

While Martin Bryant at The Next Web points out that network executives might be a tad reluctant to walk down the same path that the music industry has with Apple this would be a big win for the consumer and in the end it could be a win for the networks.

However there’s a real big problem that would need to be overcome for this to be a major game changer in the television industry and it all boils down to one word.

Geotarding.

For those of you who may not have heard of the term before it basically boils down to being able to view or listen to content based on your geographical location. The best example to give regarding geotarding would be Hulu for video and Pandora for music. With either service if you live primarily outside of the US you are shit out of luck.

Now recently Hulu has been making deals with broadcasting companies outside of the US principally England and I understand that Pandora is continually trying to work deals to expand their user base in other countries.

Sure we might like to yell and scream at companies like Hulu and Pandora for doing this geotarding but in reality it’s not totally their fault. In many cases it is a combination of country laws and copyright laws that stop us from being able to access these services.

I can’t talk about other countries but I know here in Canada that when it comes to both television and radio, which companies like Hulu and Pandora would fall under, our country has some exceptionally archaic laws that were enacted back in the 1970′s. These laws were originally intended to protect our cultural identity by forcing Canadian radio and television companies to carry a certain percentage of Canadian made content.

For example any US television networks that wants to make it’s content available to Canadians has to sell it, or go through, a Canadian broadcaster. If a cable network wants to show it’s content in whole above the 49th parallel then it must have a Canadian company. This is why you have Discovery Canada, or SyFy opening up in Canada as Space TV, it was also the reason why CourtTV (before changing their name to truTV) got yanked from Canadian cable and had to open up CourtTV Canada.

When it gets to music things get a little murkier as it becomes a combination of regulations and copyrights. When it comes to the copyrights part it is important to remember that in most cases there is no one single global copyright system – each country has their own copyrights so for a US radio station to play music in Canada they need to pay for Canadian copyright licence on top of already buying a US copyright license.

In the case of Pandora they tried to do this but the Canadian copyright holders were asking such exorbitant amounts of money that Pandora had to walk away from the table. No multiple this problem for all the countries in the world where you want people to be able to hear your music or see your video.

So what does all this have to do with Apple?

Well it all boils down to what a good friend of mine refers to a might makes right. In the case of music Apple is the current powerhouse that everyone in the industry knows that they will have to play with. As much as I may not like Apple they have brought a leveling of the playing field to the downloadable music business. The consumer for the most part has been the big winner in this.

There is no denying that our copyright and governmental regulations surrounding are behind the times and desperately need to be changed. The problem is that the way it is now is benefiting everyone except the consumer.

So here we have Apple, the powerhouse that has help to change the music industry, now interested in getting into provide television network programming at what has to be admittedly a reasonable price. If anyone could possibly influence change in at least the copyright part of the problem it would have to be Apple. Definitely the regulation part – especially in Canada would be the hard nut to crack.

However in this move I am definitely rooting for Jobs and company to at least start the roller coaster of change that would come about with an iTunes TV subscription.

In the end it could be a big win for the consumer.

note: I got Martin’s name wrong but have now corrected it. I knew it wasn’t Michael especially since I had his post open at the time of writing. Sorry about that Martin.

Apple TV Subscriptions? Oh man I really hope so! is a post from: The Inquisitr

I’ve been watching the fuss being made over the fact that Hulu has decided to come out with a desktop application and the best I can come up with is a great big *YAWN* – who cares. After none of this changes the fact that Hulu is only available in the United States, and soon England. However Sean P. Aune over at StarterTech raised a point that seems to surface a lot these days.

He questioned why anyone would want to come out with a desktop application for a web based service, such as Hulu, when the market for such an application is in his opinion negligible

We say “unexpected” because it really only improves the viewing experience of the service for a very small percentage of users.  If you have a Windows Media Center PC or a Mac, you can hook them up to your TV and then use the remote control from your computer to control the browsing of the service from anywhere else in the room that you want.  While this is a nice idea, it still requires your computer to be hooked up to your TV, which means it has to be in physical proximity to your television set.

Sorry Sean, but not everyone wants to do everything out of a browser. In some cases having a desktop application for a service is preferable, just look at the popularity of desktop Twitter clients. Sure that market might be shifting but being able to corner a market such a Hulu wants to do means you need to cover all your bases. Do you think that Twitter would be as popular today as it is without those desktop clients? I don’t.

So even though the geotarding crap that Hulu and their entertainment industry masters enforce on us is a major irritation and the biggest holdback to their success I think it’s a good thing that they’ve gone this extra step. I know that if I could use Hulu I’d be downloading their desktop client right now, but I can’t so again *YAWN*

Who cares what Hulu is doing… is a post from: The Inquisitr

I totally get that this whole geotarding thing can’t be placed directly at the feet of companies like Hulu and Pandora. I understand that they are having to play nice with rights holders around the world and some of them just don’t want to play nice at all. So it was good to hear today that Hulu looks to be cutting deals with all the players involved in television broadcasting in the UK and hopefully by September those lucky sods in the UK will be able to enjoy a great service.

However this still begs the question – what about the rest of us poor saps who will still find ourselves stuck behind the geotarding wall?

What really gets me riled up is that services like Hulu and Pandora don’t explain in plain English and not some legalese doubletalk as to why the rest of the world can’t use the service. We saw the same thing when Skype said that their App Store application for the iPhone would, or would not, be available in Canada but with limitations, like being able to make outgoing calls over VoIP. The strange part of this is that we can use Skype in Canada on our computers and buy Skype minutes with Canadian dollars.

All we got from Skype was that it was due to patent problems. This is slightly more than we get from Hulu or Pandora, who say it’s because they couldn’t come to copyright agreements. Well you know what? this is all pure and unadulterated bullshit.

We are supposed to be in an era where social media is the great equalizer but it seems sometimes that when it come to issues that cause companies to have to ‘legitimately’ geotard their products the power of social media gets forgotten. Much of the argument around the reasons for geotarding revolves around copyright issues or problems being able to target advertising properly. Well the second issue is just plain stupid and really shouldn’t even be a consideration.

The first though is something that can be changed – if the companies were honest with us as to exactly why they are having to geotard a country; or countries. Say for example the problem with Hulu being able to open up to Canada is due to the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Telecommunication Commission) then tell us that. Or perhaps it’s because the monopolizing television and cable broadcasters are the ones causing the problems then tell us that.

Then bring the so-called power of social media to bear on the problem. Don’t hide behind neatly couched legalese. Call on the people – because I would bet dollars to donuts that if we knew exactly what the problem was there we would be able bring what pressure we can to see changes are made – or at least try our damndest.

Instead we are treated like mindless consumers with no voice in finding solutions to the problems which says a lot about what companies really think about this whole social media thing.

[picture courtesy of Telegraph Online because I live and Canada and wouldn’t be able to get a screenshot of a show playing on Hulu.]

Hulu to release the UK from geotarding hell – how about the rest of the world? is a post from: The Inquisitr