Q: Why does it take a purchased movie on apple tv hours to load?

The first thing to check would be your internet download speed, you can do this at www.speedtest.net. If you do this using a computer connected by ethernet, you should get a fairly good indication of your incoming speed from the ISP. If you are using a device connected by wifi you will need to take account of the portion of your internal network being used and the effect it might have on the result you are seeing. However the Apple TV 4 has the Speediest app available for download, which would give you the most reliable results at your Apple TV, but may not actually be what you want to know at this point. .Another option is to access your modem (see your manual to determine how to do this) through your web browser or specialist software supplied by your ISP, the software on the modem itself will often tell you your connection speeds somewhere.

1080p HD movies require a recommended speed of 8 Mbps, 720p HD movies require a recommended speed of 6 Mbps, while SD movies require a recommended speed of 2.5 Mbps.