For the past several months, rumors have been flying that the last major project from the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs was to be some kind of television-based device and/or service. Now the head of one of the US"s major television networks has confirmed that he and Jobs discussed this project a year ago, well before Jobs" death in October 2011.
The Hollywood Reporter states that CBS CEO Leslie Moonves made these remarks on Saturday during keynote address at the UCLA Entertainment Symposium. In his remarks, Moonves said that Jobs pitched some kind of television subscription service and wanted to include content owned by CBS in the venture.
Moonves said that ultimately he declined Jobs" offer, saying that he felt such a service would cut into CBS"s already established revenue streams. Moonves did say that Jobs "strongly disagreed" with Moonves"s views but didn"t go into details.
Ironically, CBS does offer a number of its older TV shows on Netflix and Amazon"s streaming video services. It also offers shows from The CW, which is co-owned by CBS and Time Warner, on Netflix and Hulu.
This would seem to confirm that Apple is, or at least was, working on some kind of television-based service beyond what it offers on iTunes, where people can purchase and download individual episodes of TV shows.