ITV Responds To Apple TV Rebranding Rumours

Rumours have been circulating that Apple is planning to rename its set-top box TV service as iTV, prompting speculation of a legal battle with UK broadcaster ITV.

Tech blog Engadget quoted an unnamed “trusted source”, claiming that the next version of the company’s set-top box would leverage a new iTunes streaming service to “push out 720p clips” and run apps. However, it was apparently unclear whether there would be any synergy with Apple’s current mobile-device family.

Apple TV

Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook famously referred to Apple TV as the company’s “hobby” during a Goldman Sachs technology conference in February. “The reason that we call it a hobby,” he told the audience, “If you look at the other businesses we’re in, these businesses are all in huge markets. The unit [volume] in these things is huge. Apple TV is in a market that’s very small.”

Nevertheless, Apple TV has also experienced some year-over-year growth, and keeping the device in circulation would allow Apple to challenge Google, whose own plans in the segment revolve around the newly announced Google TV.

If Apple is seriously considering using the name iTV, however, it is likely to come up against heavy opposition from ITV – which is the oldest commercial television network in the UK. An over-hyped report in the Mirror claims that ITV bosses are “furious” and are already meeting with lawyers to stop the move.

“You only have to look at recent problems with the iPhone 4 to see not everything Apple produces is gold dust,” a channel insider reportedly told the Mirror. “We all take our ITV brand very seriously and we’ll do everything in our power to protect it.”

While the Mirror report seems highly sensationalist, ITV did hint in an emailed statement to eWEEK Europe that it would challenge any attempt to infringe on its trade marks. “ITV is an extremely strong brand and a household name in the UK, established more than 50 years ago,” it said. “We highly value our intellectual property rights and hold a large number of registered trade marks for both the ITV name and our logos.”

An Apple spokesperson stated that the company does not comment on rumour or speculation.

Rival to Google TV

Apple TV has been billed in the past as a possible rival to Google TV, launched in May, which funnels search, video, Twitter and a variety of web applications through a set-top box. Google TV runs on Android 2.1 and supports Adobe Flash 10.1, opening up a variety of rich web content from NetFlix, YouTube and Amazon video-on-demand to Google Picasa, Yahoo Flickr, Pandora and gaming websites.

Some industry commentators have suggested that a more robust Apple TV, along with Google TV, could herald the creation of a new market segment—not to mention another battleground for the two companies.

“There’s no way anyone can prevent this from being deployed,” Gartner analyst Van Baker told eWEEK in May, referring to Google TV, “because even if service providers like Comcast or DirectTV don’t like the idea, there’s nothing they can do about it … the software takes the HDMI out of the feed from the set-top box and ‘Androids’ it into this bigger environment and presents that to the consumer.”

Additional reporting by Nicholas Kolakowski