Apple is “nearing” a deal with Time Warner Cable to offer a lineup of live TV feeds from the MSO to authenticated cable subscribers, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
Bloomberg said the companies expect to announce the deal “within a few months,” adding that Apple has likewise hired Pete Distad from Hulu to help Apple strike deals with media and cable companies.
Last month, Apple launched support for the authenticated HBO Go and WatchESPN TV Everywhere apps for the Apple TV, deals that represented a tightening of Apple’s relationship with the pay TV industry.
Time Warner Cable declined comment on the report, but the purported deal in the works with Apple appears to be similar to the one TW Cable just announced with Microsoft that will enable the MSO to stream up to 300 live TV channels to the Xbox 360 later this summer, and put it in position to deliver live TV to the coming Xbox One console.
TWC also offers variants of its TWC TV app on iOS and Android devices, Roku boxes, and PCs and Mac browsers. TWC plans to offer about 5,000 VOD titles to Samsung Smart TVs (2012 models and newer) this summer, and add live TV streaming to the mix by the end of 2013.
In June, TWC CEO Glenn Britt hinted at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Telecom and Media conference in London that the MSO was in talks with a wide range of CE players. "You should assume we're talking to everyone who makes devices like this, whether it's Samsung smart TVs, Apple, Microsoft," Britt said, according to FierceCable.
