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Apple (AAPL) Goes Up Against The Cable Companies

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Most of the talk about Apple’s (AAPL) new movie rental business centers around what will happen to bit players like Netflix (NFLX) and Blockbuster (BBI).

While it is not clear that consumers will watch full-length movies on little screens like those on the iPod, they will watch them on TV. The DVD and cable business are largely built around that behavior.

The companies that have the most to lose with next-generation VOD are the cable guys. Comcast (CMCSA) told the Consumer Electronics Show audience that it was expanding its movie rental archive by several thousand films. It is increasing the speed of its broadband offerings. That will, in a twist of irony, help services like Apple’s by cutting download times.

Comcast is also creating an internet portal for TV shows and films. It plans to defend it turf. The most obvious enemy is Verizon (VZ) and is fiber-to-the home project.

But, make no mistake. Apple’s movie plans are not aimed at Netflix. There is not enough revenue there. It wants what the cable TV companies have–the VOD customer.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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