Apple is drumming up interest for a plan to launch an World Wide Web TV subscription service. CBS and Walt Disney may participate in the move to compete with satellite and cable-television operators, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Published reports indicate Apple is working to organize a subscription service that would offer consumers programming from television networks for a monthly fee similar to what customers are used to paying for cable. Apple reportedly plans to launch the service in 2010 once it strikes licensing deals with composition providers.

Apple already sells individual television shows on its iTunes Store, but a full-fledged subscription service would put the iPod maker head-to-head with the likes of Comcast and DIRECTV. A subscription service would give users of Apple’s rumored tablet computer something to watch on a screen larger than an iPod but smaller than a laptop.

Apple may be hoping to tap into what Adams Media Research pegs as

$1.14 billion in spending on Web movies and television shows in 2010. Published reports indicate consumers could pay as much as $30 a month for the service, while Apple pays within $1 and $4 a month to the various subject matter holders.

Apple’s Impact on TV

How big of an impact could an Apple TV subscription service invent on the cable and Net television industry? It could be huge, according to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

“This could set up an advertising-free subscription model that represents the next big move of television. When cable emerged many years ago, we certainly saw cable channels that were distinct from the commercial channels,” Enderle said. “Apple could offer programming from both traditional television and cable sources advertising-free and on-demand. It could quite literally bypass cable and move us into the next phase of television.”

Although Hulu.com has been discussing the possibility…

Original post by dhiram