Apple cancels NBC shows on iTunes with near-immediate effect
By Conrad Quilty-Harper 
posted August 31st 2007 2:03PM
posted August 31st 2007 2:03PM
posted August 31st 2007 2:03PM
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But NBC is broadcast TV.
"if push comes to shove I know how to use something called a torrent client"
People being HONEST befuddles you?
BTW, there are a lot of people who don't own a television. I suppose people who aren't couch potatoes befuddles you as well?
I was actually considering canceling cable and using iTunes for the few NBC shows I wanted to watch. At $1.99/episode, it would be far less than my cable bill and fit my tv watching time budget. I wouldn't have spent $4.99/ show, in fact, I wouldn't have spent more than $1.99. Kudos to Apple for telling NBC to take their toys and GTFO.
I hate big business! Where does NBC get off thinking they can charge us 5 f'ing dollars for a TV show that ran for free!
I really hope people don't buy TV shows at that price or the other networks will only follow suit.
BitTorrent FTW!!!!!!!
To step outside of the Apple/NBC, many networks, including NBC offer their show for free viewing on their websites. As someone mentioned, ABC probably does the best job at this (and considering Fox uses the same technology - Move Networks - I'm guessing they'll get their pretty quickly). The quality is better than an iTunes download. Yes, there is no ownership, and depending on the show, its up all season or just for a few weeks. But its FREE to watch streaming with a about 3 minutes of ads in a 1 hour show. And for the typical TV viewer, thats perfect. And if you're a big fan of the show and want in true HD, you'll be buying a DVD anyway. As we continue to have faster wireless connections (Rev A, WiMax, etc), this content will become more portable than it is now. So while those in the iTunes sphere may suffer for a season or two, it could be beneficial (and cheaper) in the long run for the end viewer. Imagine an iPod, Zune or Archos with wifi/wimax/3g that could stream on it.
eh, to hell with them both. I'll just grab what I want off of tvtorrents.
WTF is HDHomeRun ??
Nobody ever bought an iPod for 'easy access to NBC' programming that's for sure. So this makes diddly squat difference to Apple.
Also I'm betting NBC will encode their content in Microsoft WMV file format with some seriously scary DRM embedded.
Just remember folks 10 years from now when your bound, stuffed, cuffed and gegged in digital chains, ropes and gags that it was APPLE that tried to keep your options open...
You guys are blaming NBC for the price increase, but no one seems to know the details of the negotiations.
Who knows how much Apple gets per sale and how much NBC gets. NBC might only be getting a small percentage from the sale price while Apple gets the rest, so maybe NBC is telling apple to raise the percentage. It could well be that Apple is the one that doesn't want to give NBC a higher percentage. At that point NBC tells Apple to raise the sale cost which Apple also doesn't agree with.
Thats a complete fake scenario but you guys are so quick to blame a certain party without knowing any details. Maybe NBC was actually losing money by having their episodes on Itunes for that price, who knows?
yeah because that's how ZERO COST digital duplication works isn't it!!! The more copies get made the more money they loose ?
Get real dude!!
Well now they'll SELL ZERO copies and so they'll be saving a ton of money right?
Who knows how much apple is charging them to put their media on Itunes, it is possible they were losing money.
Itunes helped get the word out on how you can buy tv episodes off the internet. But that doesn't mean that Itunes is going to be the only place to buy them.
Why wouldn't NBC start their own site and sell their episodes. Who cares how many subscribers Itunes has, NBC is the one with the content. Not many people go to Itunes so they can find new shows they don't know about, they go to Itunes to download what they already know they want. If someone wants a show from NBC then they can just as easily subscribe to the an NBC site.
iTunes works for the same reason RSS works. Who wants to (or has time to) visit and keep up with 10 different sites for 10 different shows when you can see them all in one place. iTunes allowed you to subscribe to shows, meaning they would download automatically, buy discounted season passes, read reviews, compare options, all in one convenient place.
The real question on my mind is: When NBC realizes their mistake, will they be humble enough to 'come back in' to iTunes, or will their pride get in the way?
I don't download shows or use Itunes for any media downloading, so I didn't know that.
But I still beleive if people wan't the show they would go to another site, it might be frustrating, but at the end the user will get what he wants.
I still think NBC has more leverage because the content is theirs. If people are going to want the content then they will have to take that extra step to get it.
I'll sum this up:
NBC wont sell the way Apple wants.
NBC leaves, but Apple gets pissy and cuts it off now.
Apple's drones flood message boards bashing NBC for not bowing to Apple's wishes and threaten to steal NBC's content because of that.
Apple's drones demand that Apple calls the shots 100% because they love their Apple products.
Damn right Apple should call the shots. What is NBC actually DOING here that justifies their ridiculous price requests? Apple provides (and pays for) the transactions, the bandwidth, the store space, etc. NBC simply provides product that's ALREADY PAID FOR and very likely already profitable, and then rakes in money as people buy it.
Their selfish demands should reflect negatively on them, not on the iTunes store, and Apple's behavior here is totally justified.
Pans you hit the nail right on the head.
sola6loria, are you kidding, or are you really that dense? NBC provides the content, without which your iTunes download would be useless. But when NBC looks at a show's profitability, they look at all the revenue streams -- advertising revenue on initial airings and re-runs, syndication revenue, DVD box sets, merchandising.
Video downloads affect those revenue streams:
1) They reduce the number of viewership and thus advertising dollars.
2) They reduce the income from DVD Box sets.
The network has to balance those revenue streams to make everyone on their end happy. If they gave away the shows free, advertisers would jump ship, and the DVD sets would not sell. So, they might well raising the cost per episode to DETER people from downloading the videos... because that means more folks will watch/record the TV episode (preserving ad dollars) or buy the DVD later on.
Now that said... if you had a product that was so unique that people would rearrange their schedules to enjoy it, and then talk about it the next day at the watercooler... what would you charge? Would you make it free once you recouped your costs, or would you take in as much money as possible, so that you can create future products?
Think about it.
Me, I still think video downloads are for suckers. My TV is free, over-the-air. No outrageous $50-$100 a month for cable or satellite, no per-episode downloads. I can always skip through the commercials. People who are crying about losing their chance to pay for something that's already free are morons.
Its funny, up here in vermont, we get one, mayyybe two broadcasts OTA. We have to pay for cable (if it reaches) or sattelite.
Torrent for me, I'm done taking the legal, costly, drm laden, low-def route. Screw you NBC.
Not that I support apple, but kudos to standing up to a douchebag.
Did you flamers ever stop to consider that NBC may be losing money on iTunes? And they wanted out of their contract? Why should they let Apple dictate their prices?
You guys all took the Apple b.s. hook, line, and sinker... suckers.
How do you lose money if you don't have to do anything and get paid about $1.50 for each show sold. No packaging cost. Virtually no advertising.
The impression I've always gotten with both video and music on iTunes is that Apple's share of the profit is, in fact, very small. It's simply a tool for expansion of the iPod empire.
Reasons I can think of off the top of my head:
- diluting product value to advertisers
- diluting product value to consumers (by fixing dollar value to content)
- infrastructure overhead for encoding and delivering video
- maintaining business relationship with hostile vendor
Seriously. NBC has no "costs" here. This is just extra cash flow from a product you were going to produce anyway. Kind of like DVD sales of full seasons (of course, there are costs there, but the profit on each set sold is huge since you can ignore the cost of producing the show which you would have done anyway).
Sure, I know it's not quite this simple, but yea, NBC should be doing everything it can to sell its products everywhere it can. Besides, what marketing genius told NBC anybody would pay $5 an episode. Please find this guy, and fire him, because nobody I know is that stupid.
Hey. Maybe it is time for a new order of entertainment like funnyordie.com. Let's face it, the established giants are just getting too big for their britches no matter how big those britches may be.
$5 for one episode? I think $2 is already too much for something with very limited replay value. I mean,you watch a show once..how many times over the next six months will you watch that show again? I think shows should be $1.25 at most. I'd even pay $5 for a full season but you only get 7 days to watch each episode,that would suit me just fine. I don't collect tv shows,I treat them like podcasts to be enjoyed once with a very select few going into my archives. Rather than pay $30 for a full season of shows that will just junk up my harddrive and end up being deleted. It's not like the shows can be burned to DVD or played on a Creative/Sony if you switch devices.
Not to mention,I already pay $40 for cable. If I were to download say an average of 5 shows per week at $5 per,that's $100 a month for shows that can not be backed up or moved to a non ipod device. Thats not even close to reasonable.
I pay $40 for cable $40 for internet I paid $500 for my iphone $70 to att on and on. Where does it end? Sorry NBC,I can live w/o your shows. It's just getting to be too much and it's not worth it anymore.
If you already have cable, why don't you just RECORD the shows?
Hopefully, all content providers decentralize the distribution to other outlets (incl. amazon, xbox, appl, etc.)...which hopefully would turn digital content into more of
a commodity. Apple has done a good job corralling users into iTunes....decisions by Universal and NBC definitely erode Apple's hegemony (as well as NBC and Universal's reach, unclear of the fiscal impact), but I have yet to see a good alternative. In fact, I find iTunes' content format terribly limiting (esp. for videos) unless you are all Apple....hopefully, there will be more options for content playback/management by consumer. Or at least have more devices use FairPlay (Apple's handcuff between content and hardware).
It is humourus that people seem to believe Apple is some sort of white knight here...they are looking out for their shareholders just like NBC (the quality of those decisions is alwasy suspect). They are both good and evil in their own wonderful ways. I don't blame a corp for trying to make more money (although $4+/episode is extreme, but I feel $1.99 is as well for TV). Apple is in an interesting position due to the fact that making profit from iTunes is second to selling more hardware and increasing their reach into households (i.e., their ecosystem)....this fact (as well as lack of insight into the fees paid to the networks) makes any sort of cost analysis pretty hard.
One thing is certain, if your company pisses off Apple and Jobs, there is no going back. Apple holds grudges like Iran holds hostages.
What the freaking heck is wrong with them?
Oh well, I was seriously planning to buy the Heroes Season 2 Season Pass when it's available. Oh well, now they won't get any of my money. I won't even be buying the DVD. I want it as they become available.
LOL, all this, and WHO THE HELL was paying $2 to watch crap you can get for free anyway?? HA HA HA
Just record it off the satellite I already pay for and burn to DVD if I need to. It`s easy with a video capture card.
Who needs itoons ?
Two words for this move: New Coke
=====================
Since it the beginning of the fall season, I would have purchased 5 Season Passes from iTunes this week, but now it looks like I am going to save my money and get them for free.
While I am disappointed by the inconvience, the more I think about it, the more I am OK with it:
Free
No DRM
Better quality
Slightly less convienent
(And I don't need to go to P2P sites to get them for free. There are tons of tools for busy, non-techies like me to get content on to my computer from my cable box. My colleague just emailed me a link to elgato.)
But, the real shame is I would never have become a viewer of the Office, Heroes, My Name is Earl, or 30 Rock without looking around iTunes for interesting new bands and music.
Sincee I was on iTunes anyway, I read the reviews of these shows and saw them in the top purchases boxes and gave an episode a try. I would have purchased the $30 Season Passes for each and every one of these shows this week.
But as I said upfront, this will go down in history as the "New Coke" marketing move of this decade.
Well done NBC/Universal...smart stuff. All I know is that if I was a producer of a show and got a cut of the download action, I would be pissed.
Yo! Ho, ho, ho, a pirates life for me!
This really sucks! My favorite TV show is The Office. Now that I am living in a college dorm I can't catch it on TV anymore so i was planning on downloading season 4 when it was available. But now i see that i will be forced to pirate it out of spite.
Wow, some of the people on here are so eager to hate Apple that they can't think straight. I've never bought a single TV episode off iTunes and never will, but I don't care how you spin it, an increase to $4.99 from $1.99 is highway robbery, which makes NBC the bad guys here, not Apple. Period dot end of story.
Apple's typical arrogance in this case is actually on the side of the consumer, so we should be applauding them for sticking to their guns. The next time they screw up (which will be soon, guaranteed, just wait until Sep. 5th) you can all go back to hating Apple as a sport, in the meantime give 'em a break for doing something beneficial for us for once.
$2 was already an ABSURD amount to pay for something I'd watch for 20 minutes, one time.
Okay, yes I own an Ipod, no I don't watch movies. Got that out of the way.
For all of you people complaining about apple fan boys consider this. Apple's domination of the market (for better or for worse) is keeping prices cheap. There thought process is volume sales over high price sales. Universal wants to charge more for music (not good) and NBC wants more for tv (not good). Plus you have to consider how much money NBC gets for only allowing the tv shows to sell. It is quite literally pure profit.
Now for the people who say they could loose money...How? In what concievable way could they loose money for a digitable distribution (unless Apple keeps 110% of the profits). More than likely NBC thinks it could ask for more money from its fans and rake in a better profit (it isn't how much money, but how much MORE money). Now from NBC's point and business, this isn't a bad thing. But who likes to spend more money?
Feeling shafted by NBC’s proposed $4.99 an episode price hike that got their new fall season kicked out of iTunes?
Kevin Wick has been kind enough to look up the contact information for the NBC Executives that are key to getting this situation reversed.
Amy Zelvin, NBC Universal Digital Media Communications, (212) 664-7436 amy.zelvin@nbcuni.com
Joe Libonati, NBC Universal Television Group Publicity, (818) 840-3050 joe.libonati@nbcuni.com
(edit) Some additions-
Jeff Zucker, President and Chief Executive Officer, NBC Universal (212) 664-4444 jeff.zucker@nbcuni.com
Ben Silverman, Co-Chairman, NBC Entertainment and NBC Universal Television Studio ben.silverman@nbcuni.com
Now, please don’t call these people and threaten them, cuss them, or yell at them. That’s not going to get anything accomplished.
If, however, you want to politely let them know how you feel about their suggested price increase, and subsequent removal from iTunes, it might actually have some affect.
If enough people call, NBC just might listen…you never know.
Oh, and here is another thought. If NBC got its higher price, then other compaines would want to charge more (can some one say 1.25 per song?)
FOR SHAME NBC!
I'm the proud owner of 3 seasons of the Office via iTunes. I'll be downloading and Visual Hubbing season 4's episodes.
And when they do make their triumphant return to the iTS I won't be buying them again
Notice that all the comments complimentary of Apple are highly ranked, and all those negative are low-ranked? It doesn't even have to do with their content.
Goddamn I hate Apple Fanboyz
Are you insane? This isn't about Apple fanboys or anyting like that. Thanks a lot trying to spark an Apple haters versus Apple fanboys fight on something that's more than that.
If you were a content provider, and had a company jack up their prices to double the price, what would you do? Would you take it and simply keep the prices the same? If you said yes to the following answer then you would fail at doing business. The correct answer is you would have to jack up price.
This is what Apple saw, they said they're not allowing NBC/Universal to jack up prices to the point where they would be forced to up the price on the consumer to pay for the licensing and the servers.
Now if NBC were slightly increasing the price due to putting on HD content THEN people would have a right to critizise Apple. It would be like EMI's scenario where they'll charge $.30 for higher bitrate and DRM-less tracks, except for it still having DRM. But alas that's not the case.
Like what was stated before, Apple's arrogance helped them out this time. They had to cut off NBC because they did not want to charge more for less quality content. Though instead of letting NBC have 1/3 of the season before customers start barging in for a forced re-negotiations that would benefit NBC, they went and said Forget this! We'll just not carry this season at all!
Like said constantly, well played Apple. Now NBC's going to have a tougher time trying to re-negotiate with you.
AKBlade13
AKBlade13, I suggest that both of us hold off on debating the merits of the decision until we know the real details. That said, I know from past experience that Apple charges a hefty premium for content providers. Apple is becoming way too mid-90's Microsoft these days, and frankly, it's kinda scary.
And no, I didn't incite anything that wasn't already there.
I'm wondering, what is it about digital music/movies/TV series sales that the content poviders are so affraid of? Maybe they don't really want us to OWN anything, but rather let us view it and 'pay' for it by being forced to watch to commercials? Content providers seem to love commercials, they take any chance they get to screw up the users viewing experience with boring and pathetic commercials. They must make a lot of money on commercials right? So re-runs of older series are still worth money, as they allow for more commercials before, after and in between the actual episode. If people can easily buy and keep digital content, without commercials, they won't look at any medium that shows this same content with commercials (medium being TV or web-based broadcasts). They might actually try to keep sales of content low in order to keep the value of their own broadcasts high.
They don't want us to buy and own their content, they want us to pay (by watching commercials) each time we use it so that they can make a money each time we do.
Which is too bad for Apple, and for me. I really like to own stuff and the iTunes store seems a nice way to purchase music and series, but I'm affraid the content people don't really like this concept.
That sux so bad. Maybe NBC will change their mind. I found some funny pictures related to this story...
Themacfan.com
For all those Apple haters, I really don't think you guys actually seeing things clearly at all. Let's not taking account who makes money here, clearly Apple makes money on NBC shows has no concern of yours, because you are either pirating, capturing from OTA, or buying the box sets. Why? Because if you are buying tv shows from itunes, you won't aganist Apple's action on this particular issue at all; Apple is actually trying to save money for you!
For whoever is bting, dvr, or boxset, this still doesn't make you have any logical reason to hate apple either, because apple did not earn a single penny from you from it's itune program, and Apple didn't force you to buy them either. So why bash Apple on this issue?
What you are seeing on NBC here, and you haven't feel the pain, you will understand soon if suddently your Box set price increase or cable price increases. Because you think NBC wasn't the bad guy, they control the contents, so they have right to raise the price. So, let me ask you, what if suddently all the cable companies want more money from you and raise the price, cut of OTA services at same time? Like you were saying, they are the one who is controlling the contents, so they have right to do so, and they aren't the one to blame. At that point, we should all blame on TV makers, OTA reciver makers their hardware prices are insane because we can't watch cheap tv shows any more. (If that's your thinking logic).
Obviously in this war, the content provide is clearly too greedy. I don't care apple takes % or not, at least they try to make it fair for people to buy them. With NBC, Apple will sell more ipod with NBC contents. Without NBC, people still bting, dvr NBC contents to their ipod, apple got nothing to lose left and right. They've said "no" to NBC, maybe it's purely business, but this buessiness is good for us, and there should be nothing against Apple on this, especially Apple is doing your favor.
If you hate IPOD, you can get Zune. If you don't like itunes, you don't have to use it. If you hate $1.99 per show, you don't have to buy it. If you think a show is asking for $4.99 a pop and you think Apple is the one to hate? You really don't have to pay for $4.99 or using Apple's products. Clearly, any of those problems above, doesn't concern you at all if you don't like Apple in general. Apple didn't charge you if you are using your Zune, or taking pennies from you when you BT NBC contents.
iTunes didn't cancel NBC shows on iTunes. It was NBC who told itunes that they would not be renewing their contract with them because both iTunes and NBC can't agree on the price hike and whether or not to allow to bundle tv shows and Movies.
Quote: Apple; "We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase," Eddy Cue, Apple's VP of iTunes, said in a statement."
Quote2: Shields (representative of NBC); "In fact, our negotiations were centered on our request for flexibility in wholesale pricing, including the ability to package shows together in ways that would make our content more attractive to consumers."
Source: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117971161.html?categoryid=14&cs=1
This might actually hurt iTunes more than NBC. Remember the Disney/Time Warner drama that happened many years ago? People were so upset at Time Warner, the distributor of Disney's programming when they cut off Disney, ESPN, and more importantly, ABC from their broadcasts. Subscribers blames Time Warner, not Disney. Same deal here. The distributor (iTunes) is cutting off NBC (the programming provider) and people are going to get upset at iTunes more than NBC.
ABOUT PRICING:
IMHO $1.99 is still high, our mistake as consumers was to accept the .99 per song and 1.99 per video.
If you think about it, by selling on a digital format they have all the advantage, DRM, no hard copy, inability to re-download purchased files.
They don't pay for burning discs, making cases, shipping or printing, so WHY are we paying regular price???
ABOUT NBC:
By going to $4.99, seriously, what were they thinking???
I guess they are going to over-saturate the airwaves with hulu.com commercials for the time being until they realize that they should have stayed with Apple.
I for one called it QUITS on the corporate greed by NOT watching TV or listening to new songs.
I have plenty of songs from my old library and they keep recycling the same stuff over and over, so what's the point?
My money stays with me.
what shows did nbc have?