The NY Times has details today of Apple’s upcoming streaming TV service, and there’s one quote that has me wondering:

One major entertainment company not involved in the latest round of discussions is Comcast and its NBCUniversal entertainment group, the people said.

Although the article focuses more on NBCUniversal’s entertainment channels, there’s one other channel in its lineup: the MSNBC news network. Apple’s not striking a deal with Comcast means that MSNBC would be excluded from Apple’s streaming service.  The article indicates that Fox is included in the service, so, presumably, Fox News would be available.

Dish TV’s Sling TV service includes CNN, so it’s not hard to envision Apple picking up CNN as well.  That means, in the end, Apple could offer all the major Cable News networks except MSNBC.

That’s the problem with being owned by a content distribution company — MSNBC could find what’s best for it (widest distribution across all channels) is at odds with what’s best for its parent (people sticking to cable TV), and MSNBC would end up the loser in that battle.