JP Morgan analyst Rod Hall said programmers should be fine with providing their own streaming infrastructure to Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) upcoming pay-TV service.
Responding to a report in Re/code Thursday, in which says Apple is asking prospective programming partners to pay for and deliver their own streams to the service, Hall said in a note to investors that the amount of OTT usage currently occurring on the Apple TV streaming device will influence programmers.
"HBO articles report that 60 percent of streaming viewing prior to the announcement of HBO GO on Apple TV was via the Apple TV," Hall wrote. "Assuming other content owners are seeing similar behavior we suspect they will readily pay transport charges."
Speaking to unnamed individuals said to be associated with large programming conglomerates currently in talks with Apple, Re/code reported that the technology giant has no interest in building and maintaining a huge streaming video infrasture, as Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) does.
Apple, the report says, wants to stick to its core strengths of building devices and software.
Another theory: Apple believes Internet service providers like Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), which also have OTT ambitions, will be less likely to throttle their content if it originates from a different source.
An analyst for streaming service provider Net2TV pegs average streaming costs per user, per stream, at about 5 cents an hour.
Do other OTT services, like Sling TV and Sony PlayStation Vue, ask programmers to BYOS (bring your own stream)? That remains unclear. Like Apple, Sling and Sony reps won't say.
"Great question," wrote BTIG Research analyst Richard Greenfield, responding to a similar FierceCable inquiry.
For more:
- see this Re/code story
- see this Benzinga post
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