Apple is moving forward with its Web TV service as talks with main networks are “rapidly gaining momentum”,  The New York Post reports. According to The Post, Apple is currently in talks with ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and it wants to launch the “as-yet-unnamed” service as soon as the late fall.

“The platform is ready and it rocks,” said one source.

Sources say that Apple wants to offer on the service local live TV feeds streamed on any Apple device.

Cable channels, including Discovery, will likely be part of the package as well — “as will ESPN, if Apple gets its way, sources said.”

The price of the service has not yet been decided. According to the “industry sources” it may range from $10 to $40 a month. The Wall Street Journal reported back in March that it will cost $30-$40 a month.

Apple is also expected to launch the next Apple TV model in the fall, with a slimmer profile, new operating system and interface, support for Siri and its own App Store.

Yesterday, Comcast unveiled its live Web TV streaming service called Stream.

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We already know that Apple is preparing their own video subscription service, and it was speculated to get launched in June at the WWDC 2015. However, a recent report by Re/code suggests that the launch might be a bit delayed, thanks to Apple’s ambitions to include local programming in the streaming service.

As originally reported, Apple’s subscription service will come with over 25 channels including ABC, CBS and Fox, and would be available at a monthly subscription fee of $30-$40.

But Apple apparently thinks this won’t be enough to lure in cable customers, as local stations would still need a cable connection. In order to encourage complete cord-cutting, Apple is taking it to the extreme by wanting to include local US stations in the streaming service.

This doesn’t look so odd to come from Apple as we reported recently that Apple halted their entire ultra-HDTV plans just because they couldn’t find a ‘breakthrough’ feature to compel users to switch.

However, addition of local channels to a subscription service of this magnitude is better said than done. For most cable operators, they only have rights to broadcast the channels and not the rights to the contents itself. Which means, Apple needs to engage individual stations separately to get their rights, and that takes time.

Business executives have told Re/code that Apple hasn’t started any such negotiations yet. A similar situation faced by HBO Go took them around 2 years to get the streaming rights to local channels. So it seems Apple is at least a few months, if not years, away from adding local stations to their subscription service.

At this time, Apple has two choices: to launch the service without local contents and add it later on or to delay the launch of the service itself. You might remember Gurman’s post on Apple TV 4, where he suggested that the next Apple TV will ship with current content model and the subscription service would be launched at a later date.

Reading all these together, we believe that we won’t see the launch of Apple’s subscription service at next month’s WWDC. However, the Apple TV 4 with better remote, new hardware, redesigned interface, Siri support and third-party apps is surely coming.

Read more on the Apple TV 4.

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According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is planning to launch its own online television service that would include about 25 channels from broadcasters such as ABC, CBS and Fox and would be available on Apple TV as well as on iPhone and iPad.

The idea is to offer consumers a “skinny” bundle with well-known channels like CBS, ESPN and FX, while leaving out the many smaller networks in the standard cable TV package.

Some media executives said they believed Apple was aiming to price the service at about $30 to $40 a month. The company is aiming to announce its new service in June and launch it in September, according to people familiar with the matter.

WSJ reports that Apple is in talks with Walt Disney Co., CBS Corp., and 21st Century Fox Inc., among other media companies.

Last week Apple announced that the new HBO NOW streaming service is coming exclusively to Apple TV in April. According to WSJ, “that deal was designed as a kind of appetizer for the main meal plans to be served later this year.”

Apple has also dropped the price of Apple TV to $69 (and it’s now just $67.87 on Amazon), which 9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman thinks is a sign that the company is making room for “a groundbreaking new set-top box.”

9to5Mac reported that Apple is working on a new, slimmer Apple TV model with a more capable and tactile remote control and a redesigned OS bundled with an App Store.

We shouldn’t be surprised if the new Apple TV launches in September, along with Apple’s online TV service.

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Citing “industry executives”, Recode is reporting that Apple is in talks with TV programmers about launching its own “over the top pay-TV service”, similar to Dish’s Sling TV and Sony’s new Web TV service.

The theory is that Apple would put together bundles of programming — but not the entire TV lineup that pay-TV providers generally offer — and sell it directly to consumers, over the Web. That means Apple wouldn’t be reinventing the way TV works today, but offering its own version of it, with its own interface and user experience.

According to Recode, Apple has already shown programmers demos of the proposed service but the whole project seems to be in the early stages, meaning “terms like pricing and timing aren’t close to being ironed out”.

Also read:

• After Apple Watch, the next big thing is Apple TV
• Apple TV will be the center of Apple’s smart home
• Gene Munster now expects the Apple TV set in 2016

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