NewsCorp (Fox) says it won't join NBC's iTunes walkout
NewsCorp., which umbrellas Fox TV, will not pull its television shows from Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store as rival media group NBC Universal has done over a pricing dispute, a company executive said Tuesday.
In an interview with Reuters, NewsCorp President and chief operating officer Peter Chernin said Rupert Murdoch's media group was not in a dispute with Apple, but would like a bigger voice in pricing its shows.
"Right now we have a perfectly good relationship with Apple," he said. "But let me say this, we're the ones who should determine what the fair price for our product is, not Apple."
Some industry watchers had expected NewsCorp and other media groups to follow the lead of NBC Universal, which said last month it would not extend its agreement to sell television shows on the Apple download service because it wanted more flexibility in offering different packages and pricing.
Reuters reports that NewsCorp's decision to keep popular Fox shows such as 24 and Prison Break on iTunes should be welcomed by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, who is facing growing opposition from media companies over who should mandate the pricing structures for their original content.
Following a standoff in negotiations earlier this summer, Universal Music Group of Vivendi -- the world?s biggest music label -- said it would not renew its annual contract to sell music through iTunes. Instead, Universal said it would market music to Apple at will, allowing it to yank its songs from the iTunes service on short notice if the two sides do not agree on pricing or other terms in the future.
In an interview with Reuters, NewsCorp President and chief operating officer Peter Chernin said Rupert Murdoch's media group was not in a dispute with Apple, but would like a bigger voice in pricing its shows.
"Right now we have a perfectly good relationship with Apple," he said. "But let me say this, we're the ones who should determine what the fair price for our product is, not Apple."
Some industry watchers had expected NewsCorp and other media groups to follow the lead of NBC Universal, which said last month it would not extend its agreement to sell television shows on the Apple download service because it wanted more flexibility in offering different packages and pricing.
Reuters reports that NewsCorp's decision to keep popular Fox shows such as 24 and Prison Break on iTunes should be welcomed by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, who is facing growing opposition from media companies over who should mandate the pricing structures for their original content.
Following a standoff in negotiations earlier this summer, Universal Music Group of Vivendi -- the world?s biggest music label -- said it would not renew its annual contract to sell music through iTunes. Instead, Universal said it would market music to Apple at will, allowing it to yank its songs from the iTunes service on short notice if the two sides do not agree on pricing or other terms in the future.
Comments
Link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/merge...53262920070911
I don't understand the AI writer's aversion to actually linking to the sources of their stories. For news posted on other web stories, there is no legitimate reason not to that I am aware. However, AI writers do seem pretty happy to link to other AI stories. That's awfully petty for people posing as journalists.
Link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/merge...53262920070911
The link is in the story. It was an oversight and quickly corrected. However, the update takes a few minutes to sync to all of our servers and therefore you may have not seen the link for the first few minutes.
Best,
K
In an interview with Reuters, NewsCorp President and chief operating officer Peter Chernin said Rupert Murdoch's media group was not in a dispute with Apple, but would like a bigger voice in pricing its shows.
"Right now we have a perfectly good relationship with Apple," he said. "But let me say this, we're the ones who should determine what the fair price for our product is, not Apple."
Actually, is it not the consumers that will determine the fair price of their product? I mean NewsCorps, NBC and others have the right to value their product at a pricing structure other than what Apple believes is fair, but in the end, is it not I, the customer, that makes the ultimate decision by purchasing their download or not?!
The extremely biased nature of the value of a television program contrasting the production company's wants and the consumers' desires stipulates that all programs should cost the same, otherwise, you're making the judgement call for someone else on what it is worth to them. That is hogwash, hogwash I say!
I'll call that a non-sequitur. It's a market economy, the seller can try to sell at the price they want, if a buyer doesn't think it's worth the asking price, then the buyer can buy something else or nothing at all. The buyer doesn't have to buy any given show or any show at all.
I hope youtube succeeds to the extent that all media becomes virtually free. Before television people were social and entertained each other, now we get to pay a faceless entity for mindless ADD relief.
I think YouTube-type sites would make the ADD problem even worse.
Yes Fox/NBC/etc should have the right to charge whatever they want, and if people choose not to buy it then unlucky for them.
Yes Apple has had great success by offering a simple model - one price fits all. This also where that price is probably lower than what the networks would like to charge.
Apple is not just mediating the market between the producers and the consumers though - it is CREATING a market. If Apple doesn't do it eventually some similar system will emerge, but that something will take longer and be more complex and will likely be more highly priced (to start with) and heavily controlled. And Apple will have little say in it.
So Apple wants to make this succeed and is doing their best to push the networks into the model they believe can make it happen. And other providers are copying Apple's general models by and large, it seems.
if it's not on iTunes, I'll get it for free from somewhere else.
Exactly. Thank you.
That's precisely how I, and most of my friends, feel about this whole deal. iTunes is really the only place we feel okay with spending money on digital content. If I'm not buying it on iTunes, I'm getting it free, or buying it physically in a music/video store.
I have a feeling we're not the only ones.
Actually, is it not the consumers that will determine the fair price of their product? I mean NewsCorps, NBC and others have the right to value their product at a pricing structure other than what Apple believes is fair, but in the end, is it not I, the customer, that makes the ultimate decision by purchasing their download or not?!
Hear, Hear!!
Actually, is it not the consumers that will determine the fair price of their product? I mean NewsCorps, NBC and others have the right to value their product at a pricing structure other than what Apple believes is fair, but in the end, is it not I, the customer, that makes the ultimate decision by purchasing their download or not?!
Well NewsCorp needs an education on how things work in the real world.
NewsCorp (the maker of the content) does NOT control the pricing at ANY store front except the one they might run. They do not dictate the price of the DVD set with Best Buy--Best Buy does. Why do they think they can tell Apple what the enduser price should be?
Creator of Product -- sets the price retail buys the product for -- retail sets the price the consumer pays for it.
So NewsCorp and NBC for that matter.. get busy with iNewsFoxTunes and iNBCTunes and we'll see ya soon! I am quite sure EVERYONE will then go to their software store front to buy their favorite shows!
Oh yeah.. that is the value Apple is bringing to the mix--the storefront. You see--that's why Apple can dictate what the price is to the consumer.
Hehe.. can't wait for hulu.com -- THE solution from NBC.
-mark=
P.S. How can the studios realistically complain when selling through the iTunes Store brings in additional revenue they would not be getting if they relied on the methods they used before using the iTunes Store?
Actually, is it not the consumers that will determine the fair price of their product?
No. That's the market price. It doesn't necessarily equate to a 'fair' price.
Apple dictate not only the market price but by extension the fairness of the price. So, for a show that costs only thousands to make, the price is unfair to consumers and with a show that costs millions, it's unfair to producers.
As long as the average of $1.99 doesn't go up, I'd think Apple being a bit more flexible would be a good thing for everybody. Consumers get to buy old shows for less and content producers get to shoot expensive shows without worrying about recouping costs at $1.99 a time.
Well NewsCorp needs an education on how things work in the real world.
NewsCorp (the maker of the content) does NOT control the pricing at ANY store front except the one they might run. They do not dictate the price of the DVD set with Best Buy--Best Buy does. Why do they think they can tell Apple what the enduser price should be?
They can't. They can issue a suggested retail price of course. They can also set the wholesale price at $5 or $.05 if they so wished. Apple are then free to sell at $1.99 if they wish.
Consumers get to buy old shows for less and content producers get to shoot expensive shows without worrying about recouping costs at $1.99 a time.
This is exactly my problem with this whole thing. The iTunes market is a secondary market for the shows. The Studios make there money from advertising on air broadcasts, not selling the show on iTunes. The fact that they make ANY money from the show afterwards is all bonus. Without iTunes, there would be no secondary market for them to sell the shows at all! At .$.99 or $1.99, they have to be shoving that straight into there pockets. Any more and its greed!
They can't. They can issue a suggested retail price of course. They can also set the wholesale price at $5 or $.05 if they so wished. Apple are then free to sell at $1.99 if they wish.
They often can't set a specific price, but the wholesale price is going to affect the retail price.
This is exactly my problem with this whole thing. The iTunes market is a secondary market for the shows. The Studios make there money from advertising on air broadcasts, not selling the show on iTunes. The fact that they make ANY money from the show afterwards is all bonus. Without iTunes, there would be no secondary market for them to sell the shows at all! At .$.99 or $1.99, they have to be shoving that straight into there pockets. Any more and its greed!
A lot of the shows are available on DVD, often within a few months.
No. That's the market price. It doesn't necessarily equate to a 'fair' price.
Apple dictate not only the market price but by extension the fairness of the price. So, for a show that costs only thousands to make, the price is unfair to consumers and with a show that costs millions, it's unfair to producers.
As long as the average of $1.99 doesn't go up, I'd think Apple being a bit more flexible would be a good thing for everybody. Consumers get to buy old shows for less and content producers get to shoot expensive shows without worrying about recouping costs at $1.99 a time.
Thats interesting! In theory, there should be no such thing as a 'fair price'. If you, as creator or seller of a product, can not afford to sell at a price (because of cost of production), then you will be pushed out of the market. By definition, all market prices are 'fair prices' because they are set by supply and demand forces.
But I'll be the first to admit that there are problems with this model. It assumes that buyers and sellers can enter freely and there is some flexibility to the price. The fact that Apple is setting an inflexible price means that we can't find out whether theres a higher or lower price that would maximize returns for creators and sellers, while not losing significant customers. That price may be 1.75, or it may be 2.39. We don't know. So iTunes is really not allowing the market to develop, which may in the long run hurt customers because content that we may want to see won't show up if creators of content don't think the prices is 'fair'.
I think its a good idea for NBC to see what else they can get. If they succeed in charging a higher price, then Apple will raise prices to keep other studios and maybe lure back NBC. If it fails, then we know that either their price was too high, or people love iTunes. Either way, NBC comes back, other studios stay with Apple, and the price stays nice and low.
"Right now we have a perfectly good relationship with Apple," he said. "But let me say this, we're the ones who should determine what the fair price for our product is, not Apple."
Glad Fox is not being as ridiculous as NBC on this issue. The only problem it's not up to Apple or Fox, or any other company to determine what the "fair" price is. The consumer determines that.
We've been through this before with music. When the lables were selling bad music at an extremely high price, consumers decided that wasn't right and they would steal it instead (whether that's "right" or "wrong" is irrelevant to this discussion).
So the consumer will ultimately decide what a fair price for Movies and TV shows are as well. Read that open letter to NBC on TV Shows. Makes a great side point that until Apple put TV shows on iTunes no one thought that paying for them at all was even rationale, much less what price would be okay.
So Fox, NBC, all the other networks. They all need to stop pretending they have any leverage. Thier job is to make great programmiing. If people like it they will either get it for free (plus a monthly cable/sattelite bill, or even free over the air HD) or pay $1.99 or possibly now $0.99 per show.
Even though it looks like Apple is trying to set the price, their not. It's not their job either. They are trying to throw a dart on the price that the consumer thinks is fair. They started out at $1.99. They may go down to .99. They may bring it back up after that, who knows. But no one involved has true leverage, except the consumer. And you can't argue with that.
This is exactly my problem with this whole thing. The iTunes market is a secondary market for the shows. The Studios make there money from advertising on air broadcasts, not selling the show on iTunes. The fact that they make ANY money from the show afterwards is all bonus. Without iTunes, there would be no secondary market for them to sell the shows at all! At .$.99 or $1.99, they have to be shoving that straight into there pockets. Any more and its greed!
Wrong. Maybe it is just my perception, but the studios may be taking along term approach here. Today this is incremental revenue, but perhaps in 2 or 3 years the the on-air broadcast is the incremental revenue. They should be thinking long term and establishing a model that can adjust as the market adjusts.
However, perhaps you are correct and the studios are planning this thing one month at a time.
BUT... we must be all desperate, because we keep on paying the price.
Ol' Steve Jobs has created a fair price structure for a product that has been out of line for a long time and is trying to quell the stealing of artist works. Now the greedy studio's think they have us hooked and want to raise the bar.
I believe in fair pricing for all, but I don't have a CRIB on MTV and worked my tail off all my life... these stars and producers need to get a life like ours...
I just needed to RANT about the core of the problem.