RSSNBC Universal Pulls Out of iTunes
By Ed Oswald | Published August 31, 2007, 12:32 PM
UPDATE - 3:00pm ET, August 31, 2007: After staying silent most of the day, Apple fired back against NBC Universal by deciding to pull the company's content at the beginning of the new television season. Additionally, it disclosed that Universal was attempting to get Apple to pay more than double the wholesale price for content. If Apple would have agreed, pricing of videos would have jumped to $4.99.
The Cupertino company also said that more than 50 networks had already agreed to sell their programs at $1.99 for the upcoming season, meaning NBC was essentially the lone holdout.
"We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes. "We hope they will change their minds and offer their TV shows to the tens of millions of iTunes customers."
NBC Universal will pull its television programming from iTunes in December after the two sides failed to reach an agreement regarding the pricing of its video downloads.
The timing is somewhat interesting: In October, NBC will launch a private beta of its own video service called Hulu. With the option of controlling the terms itself, the network may have decided that getting out was best for its own plans.
Losing NBC could significantly harm Apple's overall standing in the video download market. Altogether, NBC makes up about 40 percent of the video sales of the service. The move follows Universal Music Group's cancellation of its contract and going month-to-month.
NBC only confirms that the two sides had indeed gone their separate ways, and would not comment further. Apple had no comment.
According to The New York Times, NBC is unhappy with the current measures to curb piracy, and also wanted to bundle videos together. Apparently, Apple disagreed with those terms.
There is hope, though. While the sides have their disagreements, the talks have been described as cordial and will continue. However, neither side has so far conceded to anything, which could be an issue.
If a deal is not reached, some of the most popular programs on iTunes such as Battlestar Galactica and Heroes will vanish. NBC could also be hurt as well -- the perception that it is blocking out the most popular way of purchasing videos for its own interest could rub consumers the wrong way.
I do kinda wonder why anyone would pay $1.99 per episode for a show that you can legally record off of the free airwaves, especially if you have a DVR device instead of VHS.
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|NBC?
I can't remember the last time I watched anything on NBC.
Oh well NBC.
See ya, hate to be ya!
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|Yeah who cares. I use the digital HDTV tuner that came with my laptop to "tivo" all the network shows I still watch as is. And that's mighty few. Quality is 100% 1080 and looks amazing.
Sucks to see NBCU pull from Apple but in the end, screw buying network shows on DVD or from iTunes. Free Air looks great and is, well, FREE.
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|Does anyone watch Network TV sludge anymore?
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|This is an incredibly foolish move on NBCU's part. All this is going to lead to is people downloading the versions widely available on the internet. They're not going to suddenly start to watch them on TV or buy the DVDs. People are buying them on iTunes for the convenience it provides them in allowing them to watch them on their computer, TV or iPod. Since it is just as easily done with the illegal versions all over the net, this is where people will now turn. Bright move, NBCU...
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|I don't know why they choose to pay if its for convenience. I always thought it was because they were stupid or afraid. The free stuff is a convenient search on a torrent or usenet site.
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|I applaud Apple for standing firm.
Heck, $1.99 per episode is god awful expensive as it is. $44 for full season of 22 eps? Might as well get it on DVD when it's on sale for $19.99 or even $29.99.
Like "West Wing, the complete 4th season" on DVD or something.
NBC is just greedy and scummy.
Heck, just record the eps over the free airwaves and tell them to eat cake! :)
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|Which morons at NBC thought they could swing that kinda price-rip? Some wanker suits still too young to shave, most likely trying to impress brass.
I saw screw NBC shows.
P.S. Bionic Woman sucks.
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|The real question for Apple is will it have a impact on iPod sales. I just can't see millions of people running out and buying Microsoft Zunes because iTunes no longer sells NBC Universal content. As a matter of fact I cant see it affecting Apples bottom line at all. I already have the first three seasons of Battlestar Galactica on my iPod but have no problem keeping season 4 on the Tvio till the season 4 DVD comes out and drops in price.
But truth be told, its NBC Universal doing stupid stuff like this that makes you just want to rent the DVD's and burn your own copy (not that I would ever do something like that of course)
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|cash rules everything around me
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|Greed is at issue here. Most people who buy the tv shows online or season box sets in stores watch the show when it airs. This is bottom line fact and everyone knows it. And since Those who watched the show already made the network money due to commercials the networks are double dipping. At most a episode of any show should cost .99 cents. NBC has always been the first to criticize or make harsh decisions. And they are also the worst when it comes to trying to hunt down pirates. They need to come down to earth and smell the coffee. I hope people see NBC for what it really is and boycott the fools. Maybe then they will learn not to piss off the people who watch there shows and thus pay them. Cause without us they would be bankrupt.
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|While I agree with most of your post, I disagree with you saying that people watch the shows on TV too. I'd say the opposite is true, maybe not as much for the DVDs but for iTunes, definitely. In fact, I know a few people who only watch 5 or 6 shows every year so they just canceled their cable and bought season passes for $20 or $25 a pop and they end up saving about $450 bucks a year based on the average cable price each month. So yes, I'd say most people that buy iTunes shows buy it specifically because they don't see it on TV.
Another thing is I think if anything, $1.99 is pretty reasonable and $.99 for a song is way over priced. Consider how vastly much more it costs to produce one episode of a TV show versus one song or even one album. Even on low budget cable networks you can be looking at 1$ or $2 million dollars an episode for low end shows.
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|I don't think your post is doing art in music form quite the justice it deserves. Sure there are a lot of commercially engineered tunes that get churend out factory style but composing, arranging, performing, producing and releasing a 'real' album takes a band typically 1 year.
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|Everybody thinks that they can build a better moustrap so they don't have to pay someone else for their mousetrap.
But what they don't take into consideration is the customer experience. NBC could come out with the best user experience in the world, but if I can't get my other digital media (music, tv shows, movies, podcasts, audiobooks) there then what good is it?
To be honest, I think that the price for full seasons on iTunes needs to come down in price to be less than the season would cost on DVD. If NBC expects me to pay more for digital content than I would pay for the season on DVD, they've got some serious issues with their strategy.
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|"If NBC expects me to pay more for digital content than I would pay for the season on DVD, they've got some serious issues with their strategy."
That is their strategy. None of these old media companies understand the digital age and don't want to deal with the headaches they perceive it to cause them, so their strategy is to price these digital offerings out of existence. You can see the record labels trying to do it with their efforts to raise prices on songs. They seem to think that once they're priced so high people will go back to watch TV/listening to the radio and then buying CDs/DVDs. How can they not understand that trying to **** the customer like this is just going to drive them to piracy...?
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|I applaud Apple for standing their ground. NBC, you are not only doing your customers a disservice by trying to extort an absurd price increase out of them, but cutting off your nose to spite your face. By making videos too expensive to afford reasonably, you will instead be ticking your customers off and instigating more illegal piracy. Had Apple instituted such a ridiculous price increase, while I love some of the programs, I'd have just opted to wait until it comes out on DVD at the end of the season and buy it then!
Let's see.....if a series has approximately 20 episodes x $4.99 that means you're asking customers to pay nearly $100 for a season, or probably 3 times as much as buying the darn thing on DVD will cost.
DON'T BE DUMB, SPARKY!
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|NBC are idiots... and they will piss customers off by making them pay $6 (at least) for a show that they were previously used to only paying $2 for.
300% increase? GTFOH!!!
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|"NBC could also be hurt as well -- the perception that it is blocking out the most popular way of purchasing videos for its own interest could rub consumers the wrong way."
NBC apparently isn't very smart these days--or it really seems like it. Look at their ratings...so now they're cutting off one of their only (relatively) successful business ventures? Hmmm...not smart IMO.
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|The content providers need to go direct.. NO reason for a middleman.. come on they are only .avi or mp3 files..
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|Makes me wonder what will happen with there Xbox deal. I think TV shows on XLMP have a standard rate for SD and HD shows per episode. Will they pull out of that too when the contract is up?
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