Microsoft and former News Corp. president, Peter Chernin, have been in talks considering a new Xbox Live TV channel catered to young males.
The channel would offer reruns and original shows, and would only cost an additional $1-2 a month. Chernin first proposed it on April 12, but Microsoft is yet to respond.
Microsoft may not be the only console giant being approached with a TV channel proposal. According to Chernin’s publicist,”Peter is talking to lots of people about lots of ideas in the digital space.” Perhaps exclusive channels for the PS3 and Wii are in the making, as well.
Though details on exactly what the TV channel would offer remain vague, I still have to wonder what it could bring to the table that Xbox doesn’t already offer? The Xbox Marketplace provides easy and direct downloads of movies and TV shows, and the recent addition of Netflix has provided even more content for the downloading.
A TV channel would presumably provide streaming content, and you’d have to catch the shows during specific viewing times. In a world where Tivo and DVR rule, pausing and recording shows is becoming a standard.
This may explain another recent story: Before choosing TBS as his home, Conan was reportedly considering Xbox Live to host his new show. If exclusive content such as this would only be available via the TV channel, there could easily be a large enough audience willing to part with a few more bucks a month. On the one hand, I wonder what an exclusive TV channel could offer the Xbox community that it doesn’t already have; but on the other hand, I can imagine some seriously cool possibilities.
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Published: Apr 21, 2010 04:40 pm