Peter Kafka from All Things Digital writes today that Apples is thinking about launching a $30 per month iTunes-based subscription service to carry cable and broadcast television programming early next year.

According to unnamed sources, over the past few weeks Apple has been pitching the idea to several of the major broadcast and cable networks.  As the article correctly points out, it’s a tough sell: cable networks will are not going to do anything to jeopardize the lucrative business model currently in place, in which they receive both a large cut of the advertising revenue as well as subscription fees from the cable carrier – and everyone is probably tremendously cautious about the effect on ad load, given the inability so far to monetize internet video through advertising (even industry leader hulu has had trouble selling its inventory).

However, there’s something we think the ‘All Things Digital’ article misses…  something important…

According to the article, “Apple (AAPL) isn’t tying the proposed service to a specific piece of hardware”.

We think this is probably just plain wrong.

Apple developed iTunes and gave it away for free – to drive sales of  their mobile devices.  After buying the German music production software company Emagic in 2002, Apple promptly discontinued Windows support and cut the price of the remaining Apple-only versions of Emagic’s Logic music software in precisely half  – to drive sales of their higher-end desktop and laptop machines.

Here’s the thing: Apple is a hardware company – one that happens to also release software for free (iTunes) or as a loss leader (Logic).  It’s a business model that’s worked pretty well for them so far,  and it’s not one that Apple is likely to completely abandon any time soon.  It’s also a business model that depends upon a closed loop between compelling proprietary software and Apple hardware.  For that reason, we believe Apple will be going into the television hardware business in the next few years (imagine a sleek full-size Apple flat screen television with iTunes/Apple TV baked in…).

When you think about it, many of the pieces are already in place – the Apple brand has never been stronger, the one mature for-pay online media service with a proven track record among content owners is the iTunes Store, and the Apple certainly knows how to build lovely monitor hardware.  Although in the past Steve Jobs has managed expectations on Apple TV by dismissing it as a ‘hobby‘, word of these talks are the clearest indication yet of Apple’s renewed interest.

P.S. From the perspective of the cable operator, of course, internet television represents a double whammy: not only would their content packages lose value in competition against a superior internet-based product (à la carte pricing, time-shiftable viewing) – but this competing product would also send bandwidth usage on their all-you-can-eat internet access packages through the roof.

They’re not going to lie down and let a scenario like that play out without a fight (hence preemptive initiatives such as TV Everywhere) – but look for Apple (or any other company that finally gets this whole convergence thing right) to change television as we know it.