CBS reportedly turned down Apple TV deal

It turns out Apple may have been interested in television after all. We recently found out from Steve's Jobs's biography that Jobs was exploring the idea of an Apple-branded television set and now a report from GigaOM reveals that Apple was pursuing a streaming TV service as well. This small tidbit information comes from CBS CEO Les Moonves who confirmed that Apple approached his company about licensing content for this service.

Speaking during CBS's latest earning conference call, Moonves told analysts that CBS turned down an Apple deal that would let Apple stream CBS TV shows in exchange for a split of ad revenues. CBS reportedly turned down the deal because the media company prefers upfront licensing payments for content and not future revenue splits.

It's been an ongoing rumor that Apple was working on a streaming TV service, but this is the first public report that confirms these plans. Apple supposedly pursued other media companies, but couldn't generate enough support to successfully launch the service.