NBC pulls out of iTunes
Didn’t see that one coming, now did we? NBC Universal has made the dangerous decision to not renew their current contract with the iTunes store, effectively pulling all of their television content from the grand daddy of content providers. Apple has issued a press release stating that NBC wanted to raise the price of TV shows from $1.99 to $4.99/per episode. Instead of Apple then pulling NBC TV shows mid-season in December, when their licensing deal ran out, Apple has decided to pull the plug now. NBC is said to have been focusing resources on launching their own site, which will supposedly let them increase revenue over iTunes sales, because NBC will have advertisers on their site. Anyone else with us in thinking that NBC should have never dropped out?
Bad call, they will regret pulling out so soon. This will only turn into a big mess. Oh well hope they the right amount of paper to clean up.
4.99 / episode is crazy high, I applaud apple for saying screw you to them for trying this. All the other networks were on board at 1.99 and NBC/Universal wants 4.99? Apple again is looking to keep prices down and fighting the fight that helps consumers. Hate em or Love em, in this I think they are the good guys.
That kind of pricing will just get more people to pirate the shows.
Screw NBC, at best I would by the season on DVD and burn it for my ipod. I know users want the show right away, thats cool but not for $4.99 per episode, that crack pipe high.
This sucks, now I can’t get my NBC fix on my iPod.
you can just not legally i guess. but really, 4.99 an episode?
I don’t find 4.99 to be overly expensive.
If they provide the videos in HD quality, or quality better than that of Apple’s, then the price is acceptable.
Besides, by paying $4.99 you are getting the episodes shortly after they have aired, instead of waiting months for them to be released onto a DVD set.
Althought buying each episode seperately for a season would be expensive, buying only a few of your favorite episodes is fairly cheap.
Look at it this way, why buy the whole Season for $25 from BestBuy, when in reality you only want three episodes? You’ll save money, and get them sooner.
I get the sense that a lot of commenters here don’t know the entire story and are making conclusions over one small paragraph above. That goes to show how easily convinced people are and why its so easy to brainwash someone even in 2007.
As with Mac sales and iTunes, Apple wants complete control over any and all products and services sold through their mediums. They want control over price and a larger share of the profits.
NBCU wants a larger share of the profits and the flexibility to sell TV episode/movie packages that actually come out to less money when bought combined as opposed to individually.
Neither side wants to budge. This is not great news since 40% of all non-music media downloads come from NBC Universal distribution.
A loss of their media can mean less choices to iTunes customers.
In related news, Apple is also at odds with a family company to NBC Universal – Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music distribution company. If Universal were to pull its catalog from iTunes, Mr. Jobs would lose access to record labels that collectively account for one out of every three new releases sold in the United States.
Is all this corporate spatting just public posture? To some degree yes.
But they need eachother right now and all companies will hurt to some degree if one or more of the other pulls out completely.
daniel, please provide the article that says this is NBCU saying they don’t want Apple to have as much control over the content anymore.
if that’s true, why did NBCU drink the iTunes kool-aid in the first place? the reason they did this is because Apple has, by far, the largest digital distribution and media resource (iPod) in the world today. why should they try to focus on starting their own? and are they going to then charge $4.99/episode for their own content without having to pay Apple a percentage?
that’s like us going to a wholesaler and getting charged more than if we went to a reseller.
i download Heroes, it’s available to me within the next couple of days after airing. i love watching it on my computer, without commercials.
what i believe is that NBCU is seeing that the commercial revenue will drop as more and more people download shows off iTunes. we’ll see if that’s true when NBCU attempts to distribute their shows themselves and they have commercials.
but i do agree with you that this is corporate posturing with the whole universal music group fiasco.
OM
F*ck! Where am I gonna get my scrubs now.
To the poster who assumed NBC Universal and Universal Music are sister companies, they are not. When Universal sold itself to NBC, Universal (the music label) was NOT part of that deal. Universal (the movie and television studio) was. Universal, the music label is owned by a French conglomerate Vivendi (wines, spirits, etc.). Don’t get it twisted. It just happens they are both greedy conglomerates (NBCU and Universal Music Group) who wish to exploit Apple’s iTunes store for their financial enrichment.
This is much of a loss for NBC.People rather shop in just one place.If they do open their own store,who knows in what format those videos are gonna be,than what about DRM?Than you gotta upload it to Itunes.It’s just so many steps to go through.And at $4.99? People are just gonna turn to YouTube or file-sharing networks.
In the meantime,while they are working on their own store,they are already losing money.
Such Losers!
Bottom line is the iPod is the king and until someone else becomes the king then its the iPod way. I like the iPod for the simplicity, it not a god device like some think it is. But iTunes makes it easier to rip, load and go unlike any the others do. I don’t buy from iTunes because of DRM and crappy quality (Thank you Universal for crappy quality). Now Universal says whaaah we want more money, I don’t hear them saying they want more for the artists, just themselves.
Which portable media device has the largest market share and where do most of them shop. Hmmmm, iTunes. Lost revenue and if I was a stock holder at NBCU I would NOT be happy.
Reuters published this yeaterday nbc can always put them on M$’s zune
Apple is getting greedy an to controlling.
Thre resons I don’t do the icrap are
DRM
Propitary noninteroperable file fomats.
An if you loos your hard drive you hav to pay for thos files all over again.
Devices with embed no removable batteries
No sd or micro sd slots to upgrade the storage capacity.
Nbc may by greedy and screwed the poots but consider the fact the artists get less either way but less revenue through itunes. A few guys I know are in a band an told me this.
Also withh apple trying to control distribution an control markest reeks of anti trust. M$ tried this in the 90’s an got slammed by DOJ an the fedgov. M$ has pretty much learned ther lesson for the most part on antitrust an abusing monoplys. Apple has not an still thinks they can get away with murder.
Nbc puts out carpy prgarmming anyways they are one notch up from disney an cbs that’s it.
Gal your arguements make no sense, just a bias bashing of apple when this is about Universal trying to gouge people by trying to force apple to raise prices. Their is no antitrust, get a clue.
Apple gets a set rate for each type of media, beyond that it is up to the Record/movie/Media Companies to divide up the rest. Apple
s cut is very small as they do this to drive hardware sales, all this is very well know. Ipods sell because they are good devices, if you dont think so then by something else, no one is forcing you to buy anything…
but i still think you need a spell check.
So wait, the guy who thinks the I-phone sucks and has old technology, has an I-pod? Didn’t you pay more money for the same technology as a Sandisk Sony Samsung etc DAP/PMP for that I-pod?
Let’s be clear I don’t own ANY apple hardware period. Besis ther ijunk is drm geared anyway. The enire ifamily cept th ibook imac are based around drm an the factthat this strategy relies on having contracts with media companys. No when you loos media giants like that your selection of digatal goods goes down and the alure of the hardware goes down along with sales. Apple is a DRM whore. Also the average teen can barly affors a bran new ipod theu ussually buy em used off ebay. The iphone is a last ditch effort for appl to fence DRM an rigtone to sheep. The harsh reality for apples cell gambel is the fact tha newwer phones that sell below $500 msrp have media player funtions. Once peopl realize there are phones that do this anm can run other file formats besid the icrap formats and for free they almost throw the ipod in the trash. Because you already have 1 device doing the funtion of 2 or more. Without the media conglomerants itunes sux as dos the iwarez an ultimatlay the appl and it’s hardware
I wasn’t alluding to you Galvatron, if that is how you took it.
it’s cool BTW balls of fury is so funny
NBC and Universal could just sell the iTunes AAC crap and still sell it on other sites as they are and sell it higher with NO DRM. That will sell etc. Now Jobs I felt was pushing the industry for his own gain (he is in the business of making apple more money) pushed the no DRM thing and in return he is getting screwed.
Galvatron, other than iTunes where exactly is all of the DRM stuff on their MAC computers. I have MacBook Pro and I don’t see any DRM on it.
Oh and its well known you can d/l your iTunes music save it, rip it back into iTunes as an MP3 which can be played anywhere.
NBC is pushing for more DRM out of Apple, that has been reported about this dispute that they say apple doesnt do enough to stop piracy.
If you guys think NBC and Fox’s site hulu.com will be DRM free then you have no clue. bash apple all you want but they do have plenty of DRM free stuff on iTunes and even the DRM stuff is easy to get around, if you leave it up to the Media Companies to determine if they want DRM, they will choose to put strict DRM on it.
guys this is all about the money I thin its just advertisers putting presurre on NBC just think about it for a sec people that really buy stuff are the same people that buy shows throw iTunes without comercials and companies are starting to feel that already and are putting presure on NBC, its like no one likes comercials anymore and people just rather get stuff from itunes, but i think $4.99 for a show that you can get for free its way to much, i even think $1.99 its over price, but if apple its the one dustribuiting the shows and getting the customers, and all NBC its doing is sitting back and collecting the money apple should be the one setting the rules, besides apple is getting only a tiny portion
and iTunes its doing all the work to get stuff to people, I don’t see apple losing anything, that’s why they said screw you, instead of leaving 2 months as you are supposed to, why don’t you leave right now
GE, parent of NBC, should just buy Apple get rid of the proprietary crap that Steve Jobs is famous for.
This is very interesting after Universal’s announcement. NBC has also said that this no longer about the 4.99 price. They want to explore alternative biz models.
I am sure more will follow NBC and explore their own services.
Read more of my thoughts here:
http://abhishek.tiwari.com/2007/09/02/growing-ihate-for-itunes/
Yes the original story was not true it seems. Looks like NBC actually wanted to package movies and tv show episodes featuring the same actors for a cheaper price and were not allowed.. Or something of this nature. The fact is NBC is out, one way or the other