Xbox Live Getting A TV Channel?

According to sources speaking with Bloomberg, Microsoft is in talks with former News Corp. President Peter Chernin (who's currently got a gig at Fox) over bringing a TV channel to its Xbox 360 console.

Beginning earlier this month, the discussions revolve around bringing a full channel of programming to the 360, which would include both new shows and re-runs, all aimed at a "young, male target audience".

The channel would be a joint venture (and would be co-owned) between Chernin and Microsoft. That's all the...news. Now the bad news: it seems that in order to foot the bill for this, Chernin has suggested raising the price of an Xbox Live Gold subscription by a dollar or two a month.

Seems a bit steep for something many people wouldn't be terribly interested in, what with the fact their TV sets already have TV channels on them that bring them TV shows. But that's one of the key drawbacks of Microsoft's all-encompassing subscription model, I guess.

If you think this is all crazy talk, at least it's consistent crazy talk, as Bloomberg's sources say Chernin was also the one floating the idea of bringing Conan O'Brien to Xbox Live a few weeks back.

http://kotaku.com/5520985/xbox-live-getting-a-tv-channel 

I dont even watch regular TV, why would I watch it on my 360? I'd watch conan though

just saw this on g4tv i will not wast even 10 cents on this i already have a television

They aren't going to raise the price of Live since you can buy it however far you want in advance. If they announced it, just buy a year or two of Live cards and you'll never see the increase.

reminds me of Pac-Attack.

Michael have been right. D:

So when he says 1-2 dollars I'd assume he means per month? In that case it would make live something like 65-80 bucks a year with tax as the minimum fee (as much as 120ish if you pay monthly).

That is getting to be more then paying for an MMO or something just for the privilege of getting online and playing games at all. It is also, of course, in addition to the 300+ dollars you already pay to the cable or fios or whatever company.

I'd buy my 360 back if they would just do what windows live did and make it free, as online play always should be (for non MMO games). Unfortunately it seems like they're going in the opposite direction on that point just as they're losing sales and market-share momentum despite the 199 price.

I can only imagine what they'd charge for accessories and features like live if there WASN'T strong competition from Nintendo and Sony. I don't think 15-20 dollar a month charges would be out of the question in that scenario just to use basic functionality.

i wouldn't be so quick to judge without any idea of what kind of content they bring.  getting tv through the 360 might be a pretty good deal if you can cancel your cable bill.  anyways, i'm with pachter on this one...if MS brings TV to the 360 there will be a new level of service - premium, elite, or whatever.

interesting to how this will effect the UK since M$ can't charge us extra since we already have to pay for TV licences unless they only include channel that aren't owned by the BBC

yea It would be totally pointless for them to released it over here since the Sky service covers the rest of the channels that are worth watching

unless they release a play TV service like Sony did they it would be worth it.

NO! If they raise the cost for live I'll have to get rid of my 360 and get a PS3. I will not pay a dollar more for something that should be free in the first place.

It shouldn't be free. It cost money to run those servers.

Could be worse, people pay $10 - $15 just to play a single MMORPG.