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iTMS: Apple Vs. NBC
ButterOrGunz
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Registered User regular
To get things out of the way, yes, I am mostly a lurker, so you probably don't recognize my name, and I apologize in advance for starting a thread when I haven't posted anything in a long while. And I'm starting a thread which is clearly tied in with the whole piracy issue, to make things worse. However, I didn't see an existing thread about the NBC iTunes Music Store issue and I really wanted to comment about it.
First, as background, NBC has decided to pull out of iTMS because Apple would not deal with them regarding the particulars of distribution. Initial reports pegged NBC's demands at charging $4.99usd per episode, up from $1.99usd. The same reports also claimed that NBC had also requested forced bundling of episodes of different series and somewhat related movies. So, for example, the episode that had previously cost $1.99 might now cost $9.99 as you'd only be able to buy it bundled with a movie that you did or did not want.
Apple decided that they want to retain the $1.99 pricing scheme, and so the two parties were unable to come to a conclusion. As such, the current agreement to sell NBC programs on iTunes expires in December. Apple, in response, has stated that they will also not carry any episodes of NBC shows from the new season, though they will continue carrying old episodes until the deadline comes.
NBC issued a subsequent press release of their own claiming that "We never asked to double the wholesale price for our TV shows, It is clear that Apple's retail pricing strategy for its iTunes service is designed to drive sales of Apple devices, [W]e asked Apple to take concrete steps to protect content from piracy, since it is estimated that the typical iPod contains a significant amount of illegally downloaded material." A lot of nameless internet snarks have pointed out "wiggle words" in the above statement, as the reported requested increase was more than double. Also, some interpret this statement to mean that NBC wanted a cut of every iPod sale and all iPods to be locked down to play only DRMed content obtained through the iTMS. So anyway, that's pretty much the story up until now. It's rumored that NBC will now be selling content through hulu.com, a site co-developed with News Corp (Fox). It is also rumored that the content will be WMV DRM, and thus incompatible with iPod.
If you'd like to read another good though obviously opinionated runthrough of the situation, Phil Ryu, a mac developer, has a good bit available here.
tldr; Why should you care? Heroes, The Office, Battlestar: Galactica, Psych, Monk, and any other NBC Universal show which is currently on the iTunes Music Store, will no longer be there
So, then, my opinion on this whole issue. To be honest, I don't like paying for TV shows and I don't like paying for music, because both TV and Music are broadcast free over the air for anyone to watch or listen to. I know that a lot of people argue that the ads pay for the broadcasting, but this seems like an antiquated argument to me because everyone I know that watches a decent amount of TV has a DVR of some sort. So consumers already feel like they can watch TV with no ads for ~free. And if they pay for cable, then it seems silly to most consumers that they should have to pay again to download the shows in the first place. There's a real question as to whether people should pay for this stuff in the first place, in many minds, and I think it's a success of Apple that they've been as popular as they have been with such a system.
However, with the advent of the iTunes Music Store, I cancelled my cable and just downloaded the shows that I wanted to watch through iTMS, saving me a little bit of money and letting me do as I wished with the shows, while still remaining legal. $1.99 per episode is a lot, especially for 22 minute shows, but I accepted it as moderately reasonable. Now, NBC is removing their content because Apple wouldn't let them charge $5 per episode. I'd personally rather they just removed their content than charge $5 per episode, because that is absolutely ridiculous. A season would cost ~$120, when season DVDs are usually around $40, which is preposterous.
I guess now I'll just wait for the DVDs if I buy the episodes at all. I won't be pirating them, because I'm in a creative occupation and I understand a need to support things you enjoy, but you can bet that a lot of people will. I guess I just don't understand why NBC would rather get $0 for an episode than $2. I certainly don't see people paying more, and I don't see their shows being as popular if they aren't available where everyone is looking (iTMS) on the most popular mobile video device (iPod holds ~%80 of the market). Personally, I think NBC would make more money if they charged $1 per half-hour episode, and kept the hour-longs at $2. I think you'd get a large volume of piraters who would make the move to a legal means of distribution because the cost would be more in-line with what they'd think would be fair to pay. As it is though... I think that this whole thing is going to explode on NBC.
Oh well, at least It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is still on iTMS... For now.
First, as background, NBC has decided to pull out of iTMS because Apple would not deal with them regarding the particulars of distribution. Initial reports pegged NBC's demands at charging $4.99usd per episode, up from $1.99usd. The same reports also claimed that NBC had also requested forced bundling of episodes of different series and somewhat related movies. So, for example, the episode that had previously cost $1.99 might now cost $9.99 as you'd only be able to buy it bundled with a movie that you did or did not want.
Apple decided that they want to retain the $1.99 pricing scheme, and so the two parties were unable to come to a conclusion. As such, the current agreement to sell NBC programs on iTunes expires in December. Apple, in response, has stated that they will also not carry any episodes of NBC shows from the new season, though they will continue carrying old episodes until the deadline comes.
NBC issued a subsequent press release of their own claiming that "We never asked to double the wholesale price for our TV shows, It is clear that Apple's retail pricing strategy for its iTunes service is designed to drive sales of Apple devices, [W]e asked Apple to take concrete steps to protect content from piracy, since it is estimated that the typical iPod contains a significant amount of illegally downloaded material." A lot of nameless internet snarks have pointed out "wiggle words" in the above statement, as the reported requested increase was more than double. Also, some interpret this statement to mean that NBC wanted a cut of every iPod sale and all iPods to be locked down to play only DRMed content obtained through the iTMS. So anyway, that's pretty much the story up until now. It's rumored that NBC will now be selling content through hulu.com, a site co-developed with News Corp (Fox). It is also rumored that the content will be WMV DRM, and thus incompatible with iPod.
If you'd like to read another good though obviously opinionated runthrough of the situation, Phil Ryu, a mac developer, has a good bit available here.
tldr; Why should you care? Heroes, The Office, Battlestar: Galactica, Psych, Monk, and any other NBC Universal show which is currently on the iTunes Music Store, will no longer be there
So, then, my opinion on this whole issue. To be honest, I don't like paying for TV shows and I don't like paying for music, because both TV and Music are broadcast free over the air for anyone to watch or listen to. I know that a lot of people argue that the ads pay for the broadcasting, but this seems like an antiquated argument to me because everyone I know that watches a decent amount of TV has a DVR of some sort. So consumers already feel like they can watch TV with no ads for ~free. And if they pay for cable, then it seems silly to most consumers that they should have to pay again to download the shows in the first place. There's a real question as to whether people should pay for this stuff in the first place, in many minds, and I think it's a success of Apple that they've been as popular as they have been with such a system.
However, with the advent of the iTunes Music Store, I cancelled my cable and just downloaded the shows that I wanted to watch through iTMS, saving me a little bit of money and letting me do as I wished with the shows, while still remaining legal. $1.99 per episode is a lot, especially for 22 minute shows, but I accepted it as moderately reasonable. Now, NBC is removing their content because Apple wouldn't let them charge $5 per episode. I'd personally rather they just removed their content than charge $5 per episode, because that is absolutely ridiculous. A season would cost ~$120, when season DVDs are usually around $40, which is preposterous.
I guess now I'll just wait for the DVDs if I buy the episodes at all. I won't be pirating them, because I'm in a creative occupation and I understand a need to support things you enjoy, but you can bet that a lot of people will. I guess I just don't understand why NBC would rather get $0 for an episode than $2. I certainly don't see people paying more, and I don't see their shows being as popular if they aren't available where everyone is looking (iTMS) on the most popular mobile video device (iPod holds ~%80 of the market). Personally, I think NBC would make more money if they charged $1 per half-hour episode, and kept the hour-longs at $2. I think you'd get a large volume of piraters who would make the move to a legal means of distribution because the cost would be more in-line with what they'd think would be fair to pay. As it is though... I think that this whole thing is going to explode on NBC.
Oh well, at least It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is still on iTMS... For now.
ButterOrGunz on
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Also, "ads pay for broadcasting" isn't an antiquated argument because hey, guess what, ads pay for broadcasting. Whether or not you watch the ads is unimportant, at least in the short run. The point is that TV networks get money for putting ads into their TV shows, and thus don't have to charge viewers. I would also be very surprised if DVRs are popular enough that advertisers are concerned about them.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I do believe that the current method of cut-in commercials is becoming an antiquated notion. As DVRs rise in popularity, fewer and fewer people will watch commercials. And if people aren't watching commercials, then advertisers will eventually realize that they are foolishly throwing their money at mediums that are not getting the results that they want. The demand for TV ads will go down, then the price charged for ads will go down, and then the networks are going to need to find new ways to continue to fund their programs.
I see a sharp rise in product placement as a source of revenues. The Office has Chilis and Staples getting frequent mentions, for example, and The Apprentice is an hour-long commercial every week. I think that within the next 5 years, we might see a major network drop all commercials, as the consumer base becomed more and more used to watching TV without ads. The only way to beat TiVo is to make it so the consumer doesn't want to TiVo. I watch a lot of IndyCar racing at my parent's house, and the network goes "Side-by-side" during commercials so that you can watch the race picture-in-picture while they show you ads. That makes me watch ads on TiVo. Maybe there'll be an ESPN-style ad-ticker across the bottom during dramas in the future. I don't know. All I know is that the current method of commercials won't be viable soon, and for a large number of consumers commercials aren't viable already. Wikipedia says 10-12 million households have DVRs. Give it a few years. Almost everyone I know that has spent a few hours with a DVR has gone out and gotten one.
Whether people watch ads or not is going to become VERY important, and very soon. The face of TV advertising is about to get a major shakeup. Once that happens, piracy won't be a concern. The ads will be embedded in the program, and networks will probably give shows away free on their sites. Piracy will be beaten by making it irrelevent. The only question is how the networks are going to keep season DVDs popular. Maybe the Season DVDs will be the only way to get programs without the massive animated advertisements across the bottom that are becoming commonplace on TV already.
This is really just a short term problem we're dealing with, but how companies deal with this really shows how they're going to address the adversities they will face in the coming years as advertisers begin to pull out. NBC needs to realize that you can't strongarm the internet, because the "Black Market" of the internet makes Russia and China look stupid. Tor or something like it will be fully functional soon enough, and then everything will be hidden. In order for people to actually pay for something on the internet, it has to be near-free and extremely convenient. iTMS is convenient and cheap enough. The internet and DVRs will continue their spread, and NBC will likely be left in a very precarious position if they don't realize the way their business will be forced to work in a world with the Internet.
Second... what? They already do this. The only difference is that you can only watch from a certain time until another certain time, whereas with the iTMS you've downloaded it, meaning you can play it anytime you want.
TV ads are not going to change much. We aren't going to get less ad time for certain. We may get more (Fucking cable networks sometimes have 4-5 minute long commercial breaks... I'm looking at you, TBS, TNT, USA), but we won't be getting less unless it's a one-time thing.
And those gigantic half-screen-with-sound ads are only hurting viewership. I don't watch shows on USA or F/X for exactly this reason. If I'm watching Psych, I don't want to have to strain to hear the first 10 seconds of every section because of some explosions going on that have nothing to do with the actual show.
Basically, people have tried to "beat" piracy. It doesn't work, people just go around it. Look at what Steve Jobs did with copyright protection on the store.
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@hoodiethirteen
Come the end of the contract, NBC will get shouted at by their shareholders for not having shows available where everyone else sells them, NBC lets Apple sell them again.
It does make NBC look a bit dreamy though. Now everyone will just buy the DVDs and let their friends 'borrow' them.
So let me get this straight.
They wanted to lock up the iPod to only allow playback of DRM protected media, eliminating mp3, ripped music from your personal library, and creative commons/amature music?
And they expect people to swallow this? No matter how popular the iPod is, this would kill it.
Why would they expect Apple to even listen to this argument through to the end?
That said, I think this is a shitty move by NBC/Universal. Don't want to offer your video on iTMS? Fine, just let people go back to bitorrenting it.
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
Because, frankly, these content producers/IP holders aren't used to people telling them no. The whole idea that Apple can tell them, "Well then fuck off, we don't need you to make money for ourselves anyway," is unusual for them.
I'm glad that Apple seems to be willing to take stands against these companies to keep prices and DRM reasonable. I know a lot of folks are opposed to any DRM on principle, but Apple's DRM is one of the least burdensome out there. It's about time that somebody let these companies know that they're not as important as they think they are.
Per person who downloads it.
I don't readily have ad revenue numbers at hand, but I'd be willing to bet that NBC sees a LOT less than 1 dollar PER VIEWER, PER EPISODE of their television shows from commercials.
These attempts to extort even more money are crazy.
Even though I hate to pretend that certain companies are "good" or "evil," as opposed to just being profit driven ... I'm glad that Apple is around, and currently powerful enough to stand up to this bullshit
I LOLed and then I nodded and then I smiled knowingly to myself.
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