Speaking at the UBS Global Media conference, Moonves said: “Because the scatter market in the third and fourth quarter is so good, advertisers have got to say to themselves, ‘Had I bought this spot in July rather can September, I would have paid 20% less for it'”.
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Apple has pressed pause on its planned live TV service, CBS Corp.
During the conference, Moonves also revealed that CBS and Apple were close to finalizing the price point of the monthly service-somewhere between $30 and $40-before Apple pulled out and placed the service on hold.
“Apple went down the road apiece, then they slowed it down”, Moonves said.
In October, Moonves confirmed rumors Apple was looking into a TV streaming service.
The service, which would be delivered via the Internet, was viewed as an alternative to a traditional cable or satellite package. Media executives have said they expect new TV distributors like Apple and Amazon to pay more for their channels than existing distributors. “It has four major networks and 10 cable networks, let’s say, and the price point will be in the $30s, $30 to $35, $40 maybe”. That’s complicated efforts to develop lower-cost services.
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Apple has repeatedly referred to its set-top box as “the future of television”, yet the company will have to cut unprecedented deals with content creators to make that happen, as it did with the music industry more than a decade ago. The latest version of the device, starting at $149, has an App Store for users to download games, shopping services and other video applications.
