Report: Apple’s Eddy Cue annoyed pretty much the entire TV industry

A new report from the Wall Street Journal has shed more light on Apple’s unsuccessful efforts to pull together a live television streaming service.

The WSJ says Apple executive Eddy Cue has “alienated” many of the key content providers through the company’s hardline negotiating stance.

Unsurprisingly, providers like Disney were none-too-thrilled with the terms offered by Apple to join a planned streaming service that’d offer a bundle of channels for $30 a month.

According to a report, Disney were put off by Apple’s demands to lock-in the royalty rates Apple would pay it for several years, a huge shift from the way the industry currently operates.

See also: Apple tvOS: New features coming soon to Apple TV

As has been reported previously, Apple also sought to force networks like Disney to unbundle their content.

A Disney source told the report Apple had determined Disney content to be worth $13 (£10) a month and asked it to choose which of its networks it would like to feature in a bundle.

One TV executive told the WSJ, Apple’s hardline stance was reminiscent of the way it treated music labels around the birth of iTunes.

“We’re challenged in a lot of ways, but we’re not waiting for this white knight to come racing in the way music was,” the executive is quoted as saying.

Talks with the likes of Fox, Twentieth Century Fox and CBS and ESPN. ultimately failed to materialise in deals.

The fallout leaves the prospect of any Apple Pay TV service through the Apple TV set-top box in serious doubt.

It has all been remarkably quiet on that front recently, but perhaps Apple is simply biding its time. Cue reportedly told one disgruntled network executive: “Time is on my [Apple’s] side.”