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thatcrazycajunCourtesy of my automatic notification from Apple Inc., I learned that the past year's feud over variable pricing between NBC Universal, owner of at least 40 percent of the content previously sold on Apple's iTunes Store, and the Cupertino Colossus has apparently at last been resolved happily (at least for Apple and its iTunes users). NBC-U-owned channels are once again selling their shows and films on the site as of today, after having pulled them from sale last August. By what might just barely possibly be a coincidence, the news comes on the same day Apple announces a refresh of the iPod nano line and a new major-number version of its iTunes client software....and by what cannot under any imaginable circumstance be coincidence, just in time for the first week of the new fall TV season.
Supposedly, older shows will now be available for 99 cents per episode, while newer ones will still sell at the store's standard price of $1.99 per ep and high-definition (HD) shows will go for $2.99. Apple claimed last year that NBC-U had demanded a doubling of its wholesale fees to let Apple sell its content, causing some shows to cost as much as $4.99 an ep...which NBC-U still hotly denies.
The jury is still out on whether this is truly a sign that both sides have come to mutually acceptable terms, or simply that NBC-U CEO Jeff Zucker and his minions have finally caved in to Apple's crushing dominance in the market. My own nasty, cynical, suspicious turn of mind inclines me to think the latter; by now NBC-U have learned that if they truly want to be a player in online sales, Hulu ain't gonna cut it. Sooner or later, anyone wanting any significant piece of the digital music and video pie simply has to deal with the Godfather of 1 Infinite Loop, Steve Jobs.
The taste of crow sucks pretty bad, don't it, Jeff? Oh, well, beats finding a dead horse's head in your bed...
Supposedly, older shows will now be available for 99 cents per episode, while newer ones will still sell at the store's standard price of $1.99 per ep and high-definition (HD) shows will go for $2.99. Apple claimed last year that NBC-U had demanded a doubling of its wholesale fees to let Apple sell its content, causing some shows to cost as much as $4.99 an ep...which NBC-U still hotly denies.
The jury is still out on whether this is truly a sign that both sides have come to mutually acceptable terms, or simply that NBC-U CEO Jeff Zucker and his minions have finally caved in to Apple's crushing dominance in the market. My own nasty, cynical, suspicious turn of mind inclines me to think the latter; by now NBC-U have learned that if they truly want to be a player in online sales, Hulu ain't gonna cut it. Sooner or later, anyone wanting any significant piece of the digital music and video pie simply has to deal with the Godfather of 1 Infinite Loop, Steve Jobs.
The taste of crow sucks pretty bad, don't it, Jeff? Oh, well, beats finding a dead horse's head in your bed...
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 10:59 pm (UTC)