NBC 0, Jobs/Apple 1
My colleague Cyndy wrote an outstanding article about why you can’t get your NBC content at iTunes trting this fall, which outlines yet more reason why Steve Jobs rocks.
There’s a reason why Apple surges with Jobs in charge: the man knows what he’s doing. The media companies are arguing for variable pricing, but most fans don’t want that. It’s nice knowing that you can pick up the latest Amy Winehouse album for the same price as a collection of performances from Yo-Yo Ma, and never have to wonder what your end total is going to be. Parents are actually giving allowances in iTunes accounts based on the simplified pricing; who wants to listen to a kid griping that this week’s allowance wasn’t enough to score the soundtrack from High School Musical 2?
Jobs called NBC/Universal’s bluff. Apparently, the price increases they wanted would have resulted in a price hike to iTunes customers of $3.00: from $1.99 per episode to $4.99 per episode. And rather than cut iTunes users off mid-season? Apple has decided to cease selling NBC’s programs starting with the new fall season. NBC/Universal will be left with no outlet for their programming, since Hulu isn’t expected to launch until October, and without the additional buzz that iTunes carrying new episodes of their fall premieres would add. I think they called your bluff, NBC!
Rock on, Apple. Rock on.
Hire Me On 
August 31st, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Well no matter how nice Hulu, or Joost or any other new player in game makes their tool/site/marketing look, unless they have a way to get it out to the masses they will fail. Apple has iTunes and while Hulu may be a viable competitor for this for Fox/NBC, what Apple has that completes the circle is iPod and now iTV. How many milions of iPods are there out there? Many many more that there are zunes or whatever contraption NBC can kludge together. So where does that leave their media. Sitting lonely on a server waiting for the small handful of people that watch TV at their computer. Until consumers can get it on their TVs or some portable media I think it will be a bust. Good luck NBC you spent a bunch of money on nothing and screwed yourself with Apple/iTunes. How many episodes of The Office do you think you will sell now? How many do you think will be snagged off of torrents?