Rumor: Apple asking TV networks to pick up infrastructure costs, responsibilities of proposed streaming service

Apple may be asking other parties to pick up the tab when it comes to handling the costs and responsibilities of its proposed streaming video service.

Apple, in turn, will provide the content.

Industry executives have indicated that Apple has asked the TV networks to take on both the cost and responsibility of running Apple’s proposed streaming services which Apple would like to launch next fall.

This isn’t entirely new, as many networks and services work with content delivery networks and other providers for such tasks.

Streaming costs aren’t known to be prohibitively expensive, which is what’s making this such a sticking point. According to video industry veteran Tom Morgan of Net2TV, delivery to your living room runs an average of around five cents per hour per stream.

As such, the notion of carrying this cost has given executives pause according to sources and come to be a sticking point in negotiations.

The sources have also quoted Apple executive Eddy Cue as saying that Apple feels it should concentrate on its strength of creating consumer hardware and software and leave the streaming infrastructure to those who make it their business.

Apple has declined to comment, but we’ll have additional details as they become available.

Via re/code