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NBC Leaving iTunes?
When I first saw headlines line that, one of my first thoughts was clearly wrong. I had thought maybe they'd just decided to simplify on their own video portal where all of this content is available for free to watch, with ads. You know, perhaps they were making more money on showing the TV shows with ads than through sales with iTunes.
Alas, it seems that they just want more control over pricing, much like Universal and others have wanted over time. I'm sure that means they'd like to charge, for example, five bucks for new episodes and put old episodes on sale for a buck. Which means that people will more likely pirate the episodes until their price drops.
Speaking of piracy, they won't provide movies yet due to piracy concerns. I guess Apples DRM is so open that everyone can easily crack it and copy all the video content they want and give it away for free.
Don't they get it? People like the content. People want digital versions. Digital versions aren't for sale. So people pirate the digital versions others have made.
Wouldn't they rather control the quality themselves? Wouldn't they rather offer them up for sale for any sort of additional profit that would also likely result in less piracy?
The whole idea behind mass media content is to make it just that: mass media. If people are going through such lengths to get the content then they must want the content. Right? Apparently NBC and others don't think so since they're so against digital downloads.
It's also my opinion that iTunes remains so popular simply because is has a simple pricing structure. You know what a song is going to cost. You know how much extra it'll cost to get it DRM free. You know how much a TV show will cost. You don't hunt for deals. Instead, you just get what you like. Simple. Right?
Actually, I think Apple may have made it overly complex recently. Yes, a song is still 99 cents. However, is it cheaper as part of an album? Don't albums have flat pricing? And if you get a song, then fill out the rest of the album, then want to upgrade to DRM would it have been cheaper to get DRM-free first, then get the DRM-free album? And is a movie $9.99 or $12.99? Is a season pass of a series cheaper than buying each episode for $1.99? Is it a full episode or are there two 5 minute clips of an hour long show, each for $1.99?
At least they've made a page that summarizes the current free videos available on iTunes.
Some day it'll all be a moot point when the only delivery for content is digital, even at a store.
Imagine:
You go to a listening kiosk in Borders and when you find the music or video you like, you press buy, you signal your phone to pay, and the content is downloaded into your phone. From there, it is uploaded to your media locker where all of your other devices can access it securely. Each play is sent back, supposedly anonymously, so the companies can track what's actually popular, not what's purchased the most.
This could happen now for some content. For HD movies, we'll need net speeds more like what those above the 61 Mbps median in Japan have.
Posted by Shane on August 31, 2007 8:23 AM | Permalink
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