CBS Sports and USA NOW Channels Now Available on Apple TV [Update: And More]

Please add channels that DON'T require a cable subscription to watch!

Apple TV is so desperately in need of an overhaul. This system of just having more and more channels clutter up the home screen with no real organization options aside from hiding unused channels has long outlived its usefulness. I really hope the rumors of a revamped Apple TV with a true App Store that might actually give me some control over the channels that show up on my device are finally going to turn out to be true this year. I've been disappointed too many years running to get my hopes up though...

Dear Apple: This only helps if we can get the content without an existing cable subscription.

Keep adding...one more step closer to cutting cable :)

For some reason, posters here think that Apple is intentionally requiring paid subscriptions to watch these channels, and are hoping or demanding that "Apple" changes its policy.

It isn't Apple. That I can guarantee.

And, I can also guarantee that both the ATV interface AND the whole way that you watch TV will be radically different in the near future, depending on how the content providers want to play the game. It will likely take years before they fully agree to a radical overhaul of broadcast TV - there is an enormous amount of money at stake, and the licensing issues are unbelievably complex - but change is coming.

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Dear Apple: This only helps if we can get the content without an existing cable subscription.

It isn't Apple.

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Perhaps Apple will adopt an amazing new concept as a Store model where I can actually choose what content I want to see on Apple TV rather then forcing it on me at regular intervals and having me spend time removing content I can't see because I am not subscribed or have a cable TV service.

It isn't Apple.

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Please add channels that DON'T require a cable subscription to watch!

It isn't Apple.

Tim, PLEASE stop the madness. Stop adding channels that require cable subscription. This is of no use. If I have cable I dont need the Apple TV to see those channels and if I am a cable cutter (I am), this is utterly useless.

And while I have your attention. PLEASE send me my watch already.

Now paying $72/mo with tax etc for high speed internet. All this "subscription" service is crap in my opinion. All they are doing is subdividing what is already out there. While that is good, this is still going to be $100+. Doesn't seem like a valuable option. What is to happen in the future? Every channel to have it's own cost? I'll stick with Hulu and Netflix for $20, along with the digital antenna for news etc.

It isn't so much the price for me it is the ability to have what I want and be able to cancel as fast I want without having to go through some hurdles to do so.

I HATE traditional TV. I don't want to have to rent a DVR or buy one and have yet another box so that I can avoid commercials. I want to be able to look at content when I want without all of the interruptions. I really enjoy HBONow - and I may decide after Game of Thrones to cancel for a few months or I may not. I love Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu (I suspend and renew based on content). its not so much the cost of cable that made me crazy, it was the cost of cable with all of the trappings, the equipment rental, the amount of commercials that made me hate cable - and the fact I couldn't just pick and choose the channel suite that i wanted.

For some reason, posters here think that Apple is intentionally requiring paid subscriptions to watch these channels, and are hoping or demanding that "Apple" changes its policy.

It isn't Apple. That I can guarantee.

And, I can also guarantee that both the ATV interface AND the whole way that you watch TV will be radically different in the near future, depending on how the content providers want to play the game. It will likely take years before they fully agree to a radical overhaul of broadcast TV - there is an enormous amount of money at stake, and the licensing issues are unbelievably complex - but change is coming.

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It isn't Apple.

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It isn't Apple.

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It isn't Apple.

It is Apple. It is Apple who is choosing to allow CBS/ABC/NBC/Fox to install their App that required cable subscription on every Apple TV and not allowing Tablo or Simple.tv to install their App that allows someone to watch those same channels legally without a cable subscription. Or where is the Sling TV app? Amazon Prime Video app?

If you read the forums Tablo and Simple.tv, the develops have tried reaching out to Apple. There was a rumor that Sling also tried getting on AppleTV. Can't speak about Amazon, but I am sure they would love to be on it as well. In all these cases, Apple is the roadblock.

As long as Apple is intentionally picking the Apps that require a cable subscription, it might as well be Apple itself requiring the cable subscription.

None of that you can blame on complex license issues. There is no reason AppleTV can't match Roku app for app, except for Apple's intentional decisions.

Begin by

How about this for a start: Why doesn't Apple have a page listing what channels are on AppleTV. Ideally it would include what it comes with, what you need to subscribe to, and what only work if you already get it through your cable system.

I've looked all over and NOBODY will tell me what feeds AppleTV will supply. Not the Apple Web Page, not anywhere else on the web, not the Apple Stores (the sales people kinda mumble and look at their feet when I ask), nowhere. I see lots of news stories like this one about this or that channel being added but no comprehensive list.

I want to cut the cable. I'm really interested in the AppleTV. But if they won't tell me what it provides then no deal.

Between my internet bill and the combined fees for all of my "cable-cutting" replacements, I may as well go back to cable. Thanks to premiums that Comcast charges due to streaming, my last internet bill was $89. Netflix and Hulu+ are each $9. That's $107 for being a "cable-cutter." And I still don't have any live sports. Adding another service doesn't make any sense for me.

None of the players- Apple included- share "our" desire for "everything we want to watch" at a huge discount. None of them want that. That's unique to us consumers. What they all want in any new model is a way to make MORE- not less- money than they make in the "as is" model. Else, why change?

We are the biggest obstacle to getting this al-a-carte, commercial-free dream we so often sling around this concept. Why? Because paramount in that dream is the huge discount we expect it to also deliver. Might as well pine for MacBook Pros for $100 and iPads for $50 because it's pretty much the very same thing. The suppliers of television entertainment want to grow their revenues & profits just like Apple wants to grow their revenue & profits. They can't do that by eating a huge cut to their revenues and killing the huge subsidy revenues that come from commercials... any more than Apple can just discount their products by 70% or more and be just fine.

But every one of these threads fills with these same comments, pointing to Hulu & Netflix as some grand example of how all programming should be available at Netflix-like monthly rates. Even Netflix & Hulu won't be able to stick to those rates forever. As contract renewals come up, they either pay up or lose content (like Netflix lost the whole Starz package). As they have to pay up, they will have to raise their rates and/or tier their offerings. It is inevitable.

Both only work now because the masses have not moved on them. When the masses try to go there, it will end... either by the better (non-original) content getting pinched out of those services OR their prices going up to cover significantly-increasing costs AND/OR by broadband rates getting jacked up for "heavier data users" (like video streamers).

And even Apple can't do anything about some of that, as an Apple replacement would entirely depend on broadband pipes owned by "evil" cable companies their "new model" would conceptually replace.