
CNNMoney announced that News Corp. (the media conglomerate that owns the Fox movie studio) is currently talking
to Apple about a deal between them. The deal is materialized in offering those that use iTunes the possibility to buy full length movies produced by Fox.
Fox's popular television shows like
Prison Break, 24 and others are already available for purchase on iTunes, but none of its films are. In fact, Walt Disney is the only one that is selling feature-length films on Apple's popular service.
According to CNNMoney, Peter Chernin, News Corp.'s president and chief operating officer, disclosed the discussions with Apple during a conference call with analysts and reporters, following the release of News Corp.'s (Charts) fiscal first-quarter results Wednesday.
Chernin would not give a time frame as to when Fox movies might be available, if ever, on iTunes. He did say though that News Corp. and Apple were having "positive talks," but that several details still needed to be worked out.Deals to distribute its films online already exist, as Fox announced in September that it would allow movies to be downloaded from Amazon.com's (Charts)' Unbox service. Other studios, including Viacom's (Charts) Paramount and Sony (Charts), also are selling films through Unbox; but the fact is that the Unbox service has been criticized by many analysts.
With this in mind, and given Apple's dominance in selling music and TV downloads, it is no surprise that many expect Apple to eventually close deals with most of the major studios as well.
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