If Apple can convince the networks that they will be better off with Apple than with the local cable company, then Apple can win. I can't help but think that if Steve were still here, he could get it done (much like he did with the music companies for iTunes and the original iPod). I'm not so sure that the current crew at Apple has the right stuff. What I mean is, Steve would have said "this way is better. You can give me a bunch of reasons why you don't think it will happen, or you don't think it ought to happen, but I'm telling you that it is going to happen, and I am making it happen. Now are you with me or shall I run you over?" There were a million reasons why iTunes could never work. He made it work. I understand the reasons you list for why TV is not going to work. I just wish Steve were here to make it work.
Steve was good, but not magic. One thing counting against this deal is that people have seen what happened to the music companies and the phone carriers. Carriers still hate the iPhone, they don't make much money from it, but are in a position where they have to sell it to remain competitive due to consumer demand.
There's a pretty strong argument that the telcos love iPhone (see Horace Dedieu's analyses, e.g. http://www.asymco.com/2013/04/23/the-job-the-iphone-is-hired...). The music companies may despise Apple but they're kind of being stupid. It's not Apple's fault that the bottom dropped out of their nice little business of selling people CDs with 10 tracks they didn't want to get 1-2 tracks they did AND selling people CDs of music they'd already bought as LPs.
The TV channels are a different matter. They are, today, right now, happily making $2 per viewer hour, and Apple is offering them effectively $0.70 or so (let's say the average TV show is watched by two people in a household; even if it's only one, that's $2.00 vs. $1.40.) The TV networks aren't threatened by a Napster equivalent. And the people who really might benefit from Apple's business model -- content producers -- are tied up in an existing business model that's hard to wean off of.
It seems to me that it will taken people like Joss Whedon or Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars) -- the kinds of people who could Kickstart a movie or TV season -- to try their luck at selling content direct to consumers (through Apple, Amazon, etc.) to convince rightly skeptical content producers to ditch the useless middlemen.
