The big media companies do not create anything. In one of their business practices, they do enable the creation of content by providing the up-front capital. But because of their lock on distribution, they can extract completely unreasonable terms from anybody who wants to get paid for producing that content.
[...]
The content cartels' days are numbered, and they're going to blame everybody they can for the extinction of their business model when it's really just the march of technology that has finally obsoleted their highway robbery.
I think the big error here and with the NBC comments is that there is a huge difference between video and music content. The up-front costs of producing and distributing music have become negligable. Any band can record and distribute near studio-quality music for next to nothing. The music industry has been and is ripe for drastic changes.
Unless we want to start watching low-budget video, the movie/TV industries are completely different. The up-front costs are immense (costs for sets, actors/actresses, special effects, etc.). Bandwidth and storage for gigabyte plus videos isn't cheap either, especially with the move to HD. My DVR is constantly full, and at "broadband" speeds, it can take an hour or more to download an HD video. In contrast, songs can download in seconds, and my entire music collection can fit on a small hard disk. Somebody is going to have to provide the capital to produce new shows, and they are going to want their cut of the successful ones.
It's unfortunate that NBC feels they can compare this to music. Most people just want to be able to watch episodes of shows they like when they can't be home to watch them (which they usually get for "free"). All the major networks have most of their shows this season for free on their websites. If I miss a program, I just go to their website and watch it (some "with limited commercial interruption"). For the few people who actually want to "own" commercial-free versions of these programs, NBC is insane to think people are going to pay more per episode than what it'd cost to buy these on DVD.
Unless we want to start watching low-budget video, the movie/TV industries are completely different. The up-front costs are immense (costs for sets, actors/actresses, special effects, etc.).
That's quite true, but in all fairness, Goodnight Burbank, TikiBar and others look great for their budget. Expensive special effects aren't that necessary for good entertainment.
Zucker's comments also arrive just as NBC and NewsCorp. are launching their joint online video venture, Hulu.com, which aims to compete with iTunes by offering streaming TV and other commercial video content to viewers under an ad-supported model.
He said that 50 million streams of TV shows accessed on NBC.com during the month of October are proof that there is a demand for traditional TV series on the web.
Wait, I am not sure how this makes sense. Of course people are watching on the web when they can get the content for free just by simply allowing the commercial ads to pass by while they surf other web pages. oth, they were actually willing to pay for content on itms - just like everyone else says, this was gravy to them adding $15M of PROFIT to their coffers.
The unsaid part of this is that Zucker is laying down the gauntlet by starting up an online service that is meant to compete with itms. THAT is the reason that he is slamming Apple at this point - it is mainly to get publicity for hulu.com. Of course, it will be interesting to see how much money they sink into that online venture before realizing that people don't want to see content in that manner. Basically, instead of taking the $15M gravy (that would be more if the NBC programming was actually worth it), NBC will sink a ton of money into a new online venture that will likely end up costing them more money and which will be lucky to turn a profit. Then again, of course hulu.com will be a great success, just like all the other online media ventures that have tried to take on itms, which have ended up out of business and post big losses for their parent companies within a couple of years. Great business strategy, I can't wait to see GE take the write-downs on this!
Maybe someone covered this in a past article, but how does NBC doubling it's asking price make the price rise from 1.99 to 4.99? Shouldn't it be 3.99????
Anyways, nobody seems to see NBC's side of this - Apple's focus as a company is to sell OSX/Macintosh and iPods. iTunes actually has very little to do with selling music, and everything to do with selling iPods.
Apple wants to sell music at the lowest possible price because that will get more people using iTunes, which leads to more iPod sales, which leads to more Mac sales. They don't care that much about profit margins on music/TV, because Jobs and his advisors think the money is in selling the hardward.
NBC and the rest of the media giants have the opposite philosophy, and want to maximize profits on selling the songs and TV shows, which does not involve the lowest possible price. If they can sell the same number of copies of the new N'Sync album at 14 bucks, why would they want to only charge 9.99? They'll wait until everybody who will pay 14 does, then a few months later put it in the bargain bin for 9.99.
The two ideas just don't fit together, and it appears that Apple's unwillingness to compromise is going to mean a lot media companies telling them they're not going to play by Jobs' rules any more.
(by the way, I've been eating President Compté Sélection cheese while writing this - if you're a cheese fan, you won't be disapppointed!)
Why should Apple be the only company forced to do so? Shouldn't every company that sells a portable media player be forced to? Don't forget the cellphones. What about all the cheap Chinese knock-offs that are sold on eBay? How do you collect royalties from them? What happens when you have dozens if not hundreds of content providers demanding a cut as well? Bye bye profit. Bye bye product.
You misread my sarcasm
I said...: Apple should pay NBC, just like the TV manufacturers pay NBC a share of their sales, and DVD player makers pay NBC a share of their sales
Unless I'm grossly mistaken... TV manufacturers and DVD player makers don't pay NBC anything!
The last vestige of a business that can not adapt to the market is to blame someone else for the lack of sales/revenue. That is the case with RIAA blaming the internet for stealing music, that is the case with the movie industry blaming Halo 3 sales for lack of movie goers, and that is the case here.
The last vestige of a business that can not adapt to the market is to blame someone else for the lack of sales/revenue. That is the case with RIAA blaming the internet for stealing music, that is the case with the movie industry blaming Halo 3 sales for lack of movie goers, and that is the case here.
A lot of blame should be placed on the blamer, but it's also no secret that there are more entertainment options than there used to be. For a lot of people, less time to take advantage of them.
Maybe someone covered this in a past article, but how does NBC doubling it's asking price make the price rise from 1.99 to 4.99? Shouldn't it be 3.99????
Anyways, nobody seems to see NBC's side of this - Apple's focus as a company is to sell OSX/Macintosh and iPods. iTunes actually has very little to do with selling music, and everything to do with selling iPods.
Apple wants to sell music at the lowest possible price because that will get more people using iTunes, which leads to more iPod sales, which leads to more Mac sales. They don't care that much about profit margins on music/TV, because Jobs and his advisors think the money is in selling the hardward.
NBC and the rest of the media giants have the opposite philosophy, and want to maximize profits on selling the songs and TV shows, which does not involve the lowest possible price. If they can sell the same number of copies of the new N'Sync album at 14 bucks, why would they want to only charge 9.99? They'll wait until everybody who will pay 14 does, then a few months later put it in the bargain bin for 9.99.
The two ideas just don't fit together, and it appears that Apple's unwillingness to compromise is going to mean a lot media companies telling them they're not going to play by Jobs' rules any more.
(by the way, I've been eating President Compté Sélection cheese while writing this - if you're a cheese fan, you won't be disapppointed!)
In the early 90s, I worked in a bookstore/music store. During that time, CDs were consistently $14 or $15 dollars a disc. At some time in the latter half of the 90s, prices started going upward to $16 and $17 and $18 dollars! It struck me as odd since it is the nature of technology to fall in price over time. So if the manufacturing costs of CDs were falling, why were prices going up? Because record labels basically figured they had a lock on the market (which they did) and could squeeze more money out of consumers for the same (or, in many cases, worse) products.
When digital music files (mp3, AAC, etc.) came along, it took the wind out of the sails of the labels because people began pirating music rather than pay the artificially high prices of CDs. Labels shot themselves in their collective foot when they kept prices high to feed their greed. Rather than become competitive in the digital music industry, they stuck to their old business model.
Apple's solution to the pirating of music (and TV/Movies) was to create a one-stop market where people could easily buy their digital entertainment from a trusted, safe, reliable source. In order to head off pirating, Apple correctly realized that there is a sweet spot in pricing downloads. If they are too expensive, people will still seek out pirated versions. Some people will continue to pirate this stuff, but if you find that sweet spot on price, more people will perceive that the content providers are playing fair and choose to purchase their products rather than pirate them.
NBC and Zucker would rather return to the days when the labels could keep prices artificially high to feed their greed. Apple, on the other hand, figures that, by keeping prices down, more people will pay for the content and that the labels/studios will make more profit by moving volume rather than with high prices. The low prices aren't only to keep people using iTunes, it's more importantly to keep people buying legitimate downloads. The more people who buy legitimate downloads, the more money for the labels/studios. Higher prices will only work against the labels/studios.
As others have noted, by moving away from the one-stop market for content (iTunes), NBC is putting itself back into a position where people will just pirate their content and they will lose money as a result. Others will either return to pirating, or they will purchase -- or like our family -- rent DVDs. And when I rent the DVDs, the studios don't get another dime for the DVDs after they have been initially purchased by the video store.
We sure have a lot of one-post wonders in this thread. I'm at work, so I've just skimmed the thread. Sorry if this if somebody else beat me to it but here's the condensed version of my thoughts, as a consumer, on this turn of events.
I think the big error here and with the NBC comments is that there is a huge difference between video and music content. The up-front costs of producing and distributing music have become negligable. Any band can record and distribute near studio-quality music for next to nothing. The music industry has been and is ripe for drastic changes.
Unless we want to start watching low-budget video, the movie/TV industries are completely different. The up-front costs are immense (costs for sets, actors/actresses, special effects, etc.). Bandwidth and storage for gigabyte plus videos isn't cheap either, especially with the move to HD. My DVR is constantly full, and at "broadband" speeds, it can take an hour or more to download an HD video. In contrast, songs can download in seconds, and my entire music collection can fit on a small hard disk. Somebody is going to have to provide the capital to produce new shows, and they are going to want their cut of the successful ones.
Firefly cost $2M / episode. I think it might do well at $4.99/episode on iTunes and I'd only pay $4.99 for original iTunes programming. Given how rabid the Firefly fanbase is I suspect it would do well.
Is this guy on drugs or what? If Apple did anything it opened up the market to legal music downloads. Oh I forgot - NBC decided that they wanted to screw the public and charge more. Now they are crying over it. Who cares most of NBC is lousy programming anyway. I have not seen any NBC channel in months and I dont miss it.
"Revolutions" have a habit of ending up back where they started that's why they are so named and that's only if we're lucky sometimes we get to remove the "R" but others we get to replace it with a "D"
"We know that Apple has destroyed the music business -- in terms of pricing -- and if we don?t take control, they?ll do the same thing on the video side," Zucker said...
One small company dared to break the stranglehold of industry giants to deliver a fair pricing model and freedom of choice for consumers. An industry that was stuck in the rut of delivering over-priced, over-hyped, over-marketed, under-talent, under-delivered, repetitive and soulless product designed to garner huge, raw profits with little expenses. Destroyed? No, they already did that to themselves. Saved might be a bit strong, but Apple did make a huge dent in illegal-downloading. More so, Apple gave consumers CHOICE AND CONTROL, something the big media companies would rather keep for themselves. Ask the Indies and artists with actual talent if they think Apple is destroying them, I think not. If anything, I'd like to see Apple drive the final nail into the coffin of the ESTABLISHED music business, let artists take more control of the product through this and other new delivery means so they get the rewards. And hopefully put an end to the talentless, MTV crap they keep trying to shove down our throats. Video? History likes to repeat itself and not so ironically, all this is the very same road the "video" industry is now traveling.
Quote:
?We wanted to take one show, it didn?t matter which one it was, and experiment and sell it for $2.99,? he said. ?We made that offer for months and they said no.?
Translation: We wanted to see if we could squeeze another dollar profit out of people, see how far they'd go... maybe $3.99 or $4.99 for popular shows.... then we would raise all other prices to the bargain price of $2.99.
Quote:
"Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money," he said. "They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing."
First off, the sun doesn't orbit around you sir. YOUR content does not sell hardware, it's the other way around Einstein. iTS (iTMS) content does not drive hardware sales, it's merely a value-added service in support of the hardware. The consumer doesn't have to use iTS in order to fully appreciate the hardware. If I made a vertical TV, I wouldn't expect NBC to change it's format just because I asked them to "for months."
Quote:
?It?s extraordinary,? he said. ?It?s like a small cable channel in our universe that is becoming very successful.?
Welcome to the new reality, welcome to a market where consumers have control.
I think Superbass has it right. Apple's interest is in the driving the hardware sales (all revenue/profits go to Apple) and the additional income from content sales is gravy (thick, rich gravy, but gravy nonetheless). All Zucker has to sell is the content, so he wants to maximize revenue from that. Note that while I do not agree with Zucker's demand, Universal Music was able to cut a deal with Microsoft to get royalties from sales of the Zune (you can all stop laughing about how little Universal has probably realized from this deal), so it is not as if this idea is without precedent.
Putting aside the valid comment that this announcement is really just intended to drum up interest in Hulu, I think what is really whacked about it is the idea that NBC's video content is in any way, shape or form a significant reason that people purchase iPods. The availability to download an episode here or there of a missed show, and watch it on your iPod or on iTunes, is a convenience, but not what motivates iPod purchases. How many people does Zucker think were going to purchase an iPod but have now changed their minds because they realize that they will no longer be able to go to iTunes and download an episode of The Office? If the music companies bail it is one thing, but even with the introduction of the "large" screen iPod Touch, I don't see loss of NBC programming doing much damage to Apple's bottom line.
I think Jobs ought to let them set whatever prices they want. Apple will take 30% (or whatever it is) of their selling price, and if the music/TV companies want to be greedy and stupid about it, let them; people will just download their music and TV for free if it's too much.
Comments
Possibly, when you look at equipment out lay?
Marketing cost(s)?
Personal to make / keep it running?
OVERHEAD may have accounted for a fair amount of money, or up front cost(s) that Apple put out to get iTunes up and running?
I don't think NBC is paying for that. It's Apple's store. If it was NBC's store, then it would be fair to expect NBC to pay those expenses.
The big media companies do not create anything. In one of their business practices, they do enable the creation of content by providing the up-front capital. But because of their lock on distribution, they can extract completely unreasonable terms from anybody who wants to get paid for producing that content.
[...]
The content cartels' days are numbered, and they're going to blame everybody they can for the extinction of their business model when it's really just the march of technology that has finally obsoleted their highway robbery.
I think the big error here and with the NBC comments is that there is a huge difference between video and music content. The up-front costs of producing and distributing music have become negligable. Any band can record and distribute near studio-quality music for next to nothing. The music industry has been and is ripe for drastic changes.
Unless we want to start watching low-budget video, the movie/TV industries are completely different. The up-front costs are immense (costs for sets, actors/actresses, special effects, etc.). Bandwidth and storage for gigabyte plus videos isn't cheap either, especially with the move to HD. My DVR is constantly full, and at "broadband" speeds, it can take an hour or more to download an HD video. In contrast, songs can download in seconds, and my entire music collection can fit on a small hard disk. Somebody is going to have to provide the capital to produce new shows, and they are going to want their cut of the successful ones.
It's unfortunate that NBC feels they can compare this to music. Most people just want to be able to watch episodes of shows they like when they can't be home to watch them (which they usually get for "free"). All the major networks have most of their shows this season for free on their websites. If I miss a program, I just go to their website and watch it (some "with limited commercial interruption"). For the few people who actually want to "own" commercial-free versions of these programs, NBC is insane to think people are going to pay more per episode than what it'd cost to buy these on DVD.
Unless we want to start watching low-budget video, the movie/TV industries are completely different. The up-front costs are immense (costs for sets, actors/actresses, special effects, etc.).
That's quite true, but in all fairness, Goodnight Burbank, TikiBar and others look great for their budget. Expensive special effects aren't that necessary for good entertainment.
Zucker's comments also arrive just as NBC and NewsCorp. are launching their joint online video venture, Hulu.com, which aims to compete with iTunes by offering streaming TV and other commercial video content to viewers under an ad-supported model.
He said that 50 million streams of TV shows accessed on NBC.com during the month of October are proof that there is a demand for traditional TV series on the web.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
Wait, I am not sure how this makes sense. Of course people are watching on the web when they can get the content for free just by simply allowing the commercial ads to pass by while they surf other web pages. oth, they were actually willing to pay for content on itms - just like everyone else says, this was gravy to them adding $15M of PROFIT to their coffers.
The unsaid part of this is that Zucker is laying down the gauntlet by starting up an online service that is meant to compete with itms. THAT is the reason that he is slamming Apple at this point - it is mainly to get publicity for hulu.com. Of course, it will be interesting to see how much money they sink into that online venture before realizing that people don't want to see content in that manner. Basically, instead of taking the $15M gravy (that would be more if the NBC programming was actually worth it), NBC will sink a ton of money into a new online venture that will likely end up costing them more money and which will be lucky to turn a profit. Then again, of course hulu.com will be a great success, just like all the other online media ventures that have tried to take on itms, which have ended up out of business and post big losses for their parent companies within a couple of years. Great business strategy, I can't wait to see GE take the write-downs on this!
Anyways, nobody seems to see NBC's side of this - Apple's focus as a company is to sell OSX/Macintosh and iPods. iTunes actually has very little to do with selling music, and everything to do with selling iPods.
Apple wants to sell music at the lowest possible price because that will get more people using iTunes, which leads to more iPod sales, which leads to more Mac sales. They don't care that much about profit margins on music/TV, because Jobs and his advisors think the money is in selling the hardward.
NBC and the rest of the media giants have the opposite philosophy, and want to maximize profits on selling the songs and TV shows, which does not involve the lowest possible price. If they can sell the same number of copies of the new N'Sync album at 14 bucks, why would they want to only charge 9.99? They'll wait until everybody who will pay 14 does, then a few months later put it in the bargain bin for 9.99.
The two ideas just don't fit together, and it appears that Apple's unwillingness to compromise is going to mean a lot media companies telling them they're not going to play by Jobs' rules any more.
(by the way, I've been eating President Compté Sélection cheese while writing this - if you're a cheese fan, you won't be disapppointed!)
Why should Apple be the only company forced to do so? Shouldn't every company that sells a portable media player be forced to? Don't forget the cellphones. What about all the cheap Chinese knock-offs that are sold on eBay? How do you collect royalties from them? What happens when you have dozens if not hundreds of content providers demanding a cut as well? Bye bye profit. Bye bye product.
You misread my sarcasm
I said...: Apple should pay NBC, just like the TV manufacturers pay NBC a share of their sales, and DVD player makers pay NBC a share of their sales
Unless I'm grossly mistaken... TV manufacturers and DVD player makers don't pay NBC anything!
back to Basics
apple saved you guys and now you bite that hand.
P2P is alive again ITs alive
More ipods would sell and sell.
I bet M$ is behind all this waring greed
and Im sure they are working on a software clone of itunes wanna bet people
the rise and fall of NBC
We should all Boycott NBC...
I bet M$ is behind all this waring greed
Bah, I don't think so. There's plenty of greed to go around, enough that no one should need to go to someone else to get some.
The last vestige of a business that can not adapt to the market is to blame someone else for the lack of sales/revenue. That is the case with RIAA blaming the internet for stealing music, that is the case with the movie industry blaming Halo 3 sales for lack of movie goers, and that is the case here.
A lot of blame should be placed on the blamer, but it's also no secret that there are more entertainment options than there used to be. For a lot of people, less time to take advantage of them.
Maybe someone covered this in a past article, but how does NBC doubling it's asking price make the price rise from 1.99 to 4.99? Shouldn't it be 3.99????
Anyways, nobody seems to see NBC's side of this - Apple's focus as a company is to sell OSX/Macintosh and iPods. iTunes actually has very little to do with selling music, and everything to do with selling iPods.
Apple wants to sell music at the lowest possible price because that will get more people using iTunes, which leads to more iPod sales, which leads to more Mac sales. They don't care that much about profit margins on music/TV, because Jobs and his advisors think the money is in selling the hardward.
NBC and the rest of the media giants have the opposite philosophy, and want to maximize profits on selling the songs and TV shows, which does not involve the lowest possible price. If they can sell the same number of copies of the new N'Sync album at 14 bucks, why would they want to only charge 9.99? They'll wait until everybody who will pay 14 does, then a few months later put it in the bargain bin for 9.99.
The two ideas just don't fit together, and it appears that Apple's unwillingness to compromise is going to mean a lot media companies telling them they're not going to play by Jobs' rules any more.
(by the way, I've been eating President Compté Sélection cheese while writing this - if you're a cheese fan, you won't be disapppointed!)
In the early 90s, I worked in a bookstore/music store. During that time, CDs were consistently $14 or $15 dollars a disc. At some time in the latter half of the 90s, prices started going upward to $16 and $17 and $18 dollars! It struck me as odd since it is the nature of technology to fall in price over time. So if the manufacturing costs of CDs were falling, why were prices going up? Because record labels basically figured they had a lock on the market (which they did) and could squeeze more money out of consumers for the same (or, in many cases, worse) products.
When digital music files (mp3, AAC, etc.) came along, it took the wind out of the sails of the labels because people began pirating music rather than pay the artificially high prices of CDs. Labels shot themselves in their collective foot when they kept prices high to feed their greed. Rather than become competitive in the digital music industry, they stuck to their old business model.
Apple's solution to the pirating of music (and TV/Movies) was to create a one-stop market where people could easily buy their digital entertainment from a trusted, safe, reliable source. In order to head off pirating, Apple correctly realized that there is a sweet spot in pricing downloads. If they are too expensive, people will still seek out pirated versions. Some people will continue to pirate this stuff, but if you find that sweet spot on price, more people will perceive that the content providers are playing fair and choose to purchase their products rather than pirate them.
NBC and Zucker would rather return to the days when the labels could keep prices artificially high to feed their greed. Apple, on the other hand, figures that, by keeping prices down, more people will pay for the content and that the labels/studios will make more profit by moving volume rather than with high prices. The low prices aren't only to keep people using iTunes, it's more importantly to keep people buying legitimate downloads. The more people who buy legitimate downloads, the more money for the labels/studios. Higher prices will only work against the labels/studios.
As others have noted, by moving away from the one-stop market for content (iTunes), NBC is putting itself back into a position where people will just pirate their content and they will lose money as a result. Others will either return to pirating, or they will purchase -- or like our family -- rent DVDs. And when I rent the DVDs, the studios don't get another dime for the DVDs after they have been initially purchased by the video store.
Fuck NBC
Fuck Hulu.com
I think the big error here and with the NBC comments is that there is a huge difference between video and music content. The up-front costs of producing and distributing music have become negligable. Any band can record and distribute near studio-quality music for next to nothing. The music industry has been and is ripe for drastic changes.
Unless we want to start watching low-budget video, the movie/TV industries are completely different. The up-front costs are immense (costs for sets, actors/actresses, special effects, etc.). Bandwidth and storage for gigabyte plus videos isn't cheap either, especially with the move to HD. My DVR is constantly full, and at "broadband" speeds, it can take an hour or more to download an HD video. In contrast, songs can download in seconds, and my entire music collection can fit on a small hard disk. Somebody is going to have to provide the capital to produce new shows, and they are going to want their cut of the successful ones.
Firefly cost $2M / episode. I think it might do well at $4.99/episode on iTunes and I'd only pay $4.99 for original iTunes programming. Given how rabid the Firefly fanbase is I suspect it would do well.
A
"Revolutions" have a habit of ending up back where they started that's why they are so named and that's only if we're lucky sometimes we get to remove the "R" but others we get to replace it with a "D"
McD
Are we not men?
"We know that Apple has destroyed the music business -- in terms of pricing -- and if we don?t take control, they?ll do the same thing on the video side," Zucker said...
One small company dared to break the stranglehold of industry giants to deliver a fair pricing model and freedom of choice for consumers. An industry that was stuck in the rut of delivering over-priced, over-hyped, over-marketed, under-talent, under-delivered, repetitive and soulless product designed to garner huge, raw profits with little expenses. Destroyed? No, they already did that to themselves. Saved might be a bit strong, but Apple did make a huge dent in illegal-downloading. More so, Apple gave consumers CHOICE AND CONTROL, something the big media companies would rather keep for themselves. Ask the Indies and artists with actual talent if they think Apple is destroying them, I think not. If anything, I'd like to see Apple drive the final nail into the coffin of the ESTABLISHED music business, let artists take more control of the product through this and other new delivery means so they get the rewards. And hopefully put an end to the talentless, MTV crap they keep trying to shove down our throats. Video? History likes to repeat itself and not so ironically, all this is the very same road the "video" industry is now traveling.
?We wanted to take one show, it didn?t matter which one it was, and experiment and sell it for $2.99,? he said. ?We made that offer for months and they said no.?
Translation: We wanted to see if we could squeeze another dollar profit out of people, see how far they'd go... maybe $3.99 or $4.99 for popular shows.... then we would raise all other prices to the bargain price of $2.99.
"Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money," he said. "They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing."
First off, the sun doesn't orbit around you sir. YOUR content does not sell hardware, it's the other way around Einstein. iTS (iTMS) content does not drive hardware sales, it's merely a value-added service in support of the hardware. The consumer doesn't have to use iTS in order to fully appreciate the hardware. If I made a vertical TV, I wouldn't expect NBC to change it's format just because I asked them to "for months."
?It?s extraordinary,? he said. ?It?s like a small cable channel in our universe that is becoming very successful.?
Welcome to the new reality, welcome to a market where consumers have control.
Putting aside the valid comment that this announcement is really just intended to drum up interest in Hulu, I think what is really whacked about it is the idea that NBC's video content is in any way, shape or form a significant reason that people purchase iPods. The availability to download an episode here or there of a missed show, and watch it on your iPod or on iTunes, is a convenience, but not what motivates iPod purchases. How many people does Zucker think were going to purchase an iPod but have now changed their minds because they realize that they will no longer be able to go to iTunes and download an episode of The Office? If the music companies bail it is one thing, but even with the introduction of the "large" screen iPod Touch, I don't see loss of NBC programming doing much damage to Apple's bottom line.
Does he get a cut of every DVD and CD player ever sold?
What a bunch of manure.