Apple Continues to Struggle With Contracts
It looks like the NBC is pulling shows from iTunes. Apparently they are willing to lose both the revenue and the controls that Apple provided. People have now gotten a taste of The Office and Heros on their iPods, their only option will be torrents, where NBC gets no revenue and loses any and all content controls. Smart move guys, stellar. I had perviously given NBC a lot of credit for making the move to the iTunes Store, but this retreat shows that not only do record labels not get-it, all content providers are out-of-touch.
I didn’t think it was for sure just yet. It sounded a lot more like NBC was holding out for more money. They offer full episodes on their own website anyway, so maybe they just want to drive more revenue to their own sites.
Oh it’s official, Apple put out a press release at their PR site.
NBC wanted $4.99 per episode, apparently Apple wasn’t willing to royally screw their users.
Holy crap that’s a lot of money, especially for shows that aren’t very good.
Well I’m personally waiting for the Caveman ABC series, that’ll be worth like $12.99 easy.
I’d charge them a lot more than that to endure what will no doubt be a spectacular failure. By my estimate, my time is worth at least $35/hour. Given that the show won’t make it more than three or four episodes, that would mean that Diznee would owe me $50+. They can pay me off in iPhones.
From personal experience, I’ve found that the NFL is the absolute WORST when it comes to knowing how to properly manage their own content right now. So tightfisted that they’re pushing away tons of folks, including sponsors and even local team market media outlets.