They want to charge $4.99 per episode!? My local cinema charges $11.00 for a film, and $4.99 on Tuesday and the quality is HD. At that rate I'd wait for the DVD box set and let them try to get a grasp of reality in the meantime. At least in a cinema you know you are paying for staff, the maintenance of the screen and equipment, the cushy seating and so on, on top of the basic cost of the film. In the case of TV and film on iTunes there are little to none of the above and Apple is doing all the work of distribution.
What these film companies need to understand is that if you put the price too high, slap on too much DRM and people will either buy from another medium or switch to piracy. Maybe they do understand this, but their greed is fighting with the gree of people wanting things for free. Surely there is a middle road?
I think it's pretty hypocritical NBC whines about Apple's pricing policies, yet they pay their writers shi*."
As a currently-striking member of the WGA, I can assure you that writers are well-compensated. Even the non-union shows I've worked on pay writers close to six figures.
The strike entails much more than DVD/Internet compensation. Anyone interested in what's happening should check out http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com.
Im sure that future episodes will be widely available on bittorrent - and guess what - those files can be made to work on an iPod or an Apple TV or computer or anything else. NBC just doesn't get it. Why make pay harder than free?
For someone that would download from bittorent, would they just download NBC shows or would they download every show that is available?
"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," he said.
I never bought music before iTunes came along. NEVER. Too many albums with 9 crap songs and two good ones. Now I buy music. One track at a time.
If anything $1.99 is too much for a tv show. Especially when it's not complete, like the WKRP fiasco. iTunes needs to provide a substantial discount for people buying an entire season too.
I was close to buying the Office, but it was a little too much money. I'll extract from my TiVo instead.
I won't be looking for shows anywhere else either, like Amazon. Apple and iTunes provided the best experience. Simple interface, plays on iPods and computers and Apple TV. Watching the networks try to provide a comparable experience is a joke. Shows that you can't even download?! How have these people stayed in business so long?
It sounds like I'm all over the map, but here's the bottom line. iTunes is the best option the networks have right now. Pulling the plug before they have a better plan in place doesn't make any sense for them or their shareholders. I'd like to see NBC explain to GE how losing the iTunes revenue stream makes sense for their investors.
I don't get cable and I don't like waiting for DVD so the surprises are spoiled by the time I watch. So I subscribed to BSG until now.
I was hoping to buy BSG Razor from iTunes, but it's not happening. (Luckily I think my library will have that DVD pretty soon though.)
It's hard to say if that's a truly big loss yet, unfortunately.
Galactica was brilliant in the Miniseries, Season 1 and much of Season 2. But then, late in S2, the quality started to decline... to my horror. That was likely due to them going from 13 episode seasons to 20 eppy seasons. As Ron Moore, their showrunner, said, "It's harder to make each one special" under those conditions. Just not enough time. \
Whatever the case, Season 3 was not very good at all. It was just average TV, for the most part, which is bad by Galactica standards. Getting off of New Caprica was cool, the Eye of Jupiter story arc at mid-season was cool, and everything else was... meh. Really says something when Starbuck 'died' near the end of S3, and I just didn't care much. Couldn't imagine feeling that way during S1 or much of S2, when I hung on scene.
Hopefully, with the very long hiatus after Season 3, they've had a chance to get the quality back up. I haven't seen BSG Razor yet, but friends who have said it was strong. I'll be gettin' the DVD.
And prayin', prayin', PRAYING that Galactica gets it's groove back in Season 4. So say we all.
I don't get cable and I don't like waiting for DVD so the surprises are spoiled by the time I watch. So I subscribed to BSG until now.
I was hoping to buy BSG Razor from iTunes, but it's not happening. (Luckily I think my library will have that DVD pretty soon though. I won't have to wait a full season.)
NBC says it needs advertisement to make enough money to make a profit on a TV series (that $1.99 a show wont cover that by far with the current amount of downloaders) so they don't want the Apple model.
They forget to add that they already make a huge profit on every TV show, because when broadcasted on TV it is full of advertisement. Putting the shows on iTunes is just a small additional income.
But they are afraid that downloadable "on demand" TV, like iTunes soon become the future, and then they wont make "enough" money from that $1.99 a show. (although I personally believe that they just want to make the max amount of money.)
But they also have no clue on HOW to create a (for them) working business model. So they try free online, but crippled; with ads, low quality, only in streaming... you might as well watch TV or video tape it!
And, most importantly, they forget people are handy enough to find it for free online without those restrictions... just like they do with music.
The only way to combat "pirating" tv series is by offering the closest possible alternative: ad free, for a low price, just like iTunes offers.
Some say offering FREE downloadable TV shows, with only some ads at the start and end, without restrictions (it has to work on all the different apparatus) is the solution, I think this solution only makes life easier for pirates: they download the show, edit the ads away and offer it without ads as a Torrent....
For someone that would download from bittorent, would they just download NBC shows or would they download every show that is available?
It depends on the person. Some people download everything. Other people buy what is available and only pirate when they don't have the option to buy.
NBC's actions aren't going to make a difference with the first group, but they'll lose customers in the second.
If NBC really wanted to raise prices on downloadable TV content, they'd need to justify it somehow. I could only see paying more if they gave you a rebate on the DVD's or something like that.
Wouldn't that be appealing to customers? Buy the season in advance for like $50, then get the $35 DVD for free when it ships?
Quote:
Originally Posted by S10
Some say offering FREE downloadable TV shows, with only some ads at the start and end, without restrictions (it has to work on all the different apparatus) is the solution, I think this solution only makes life easier for pirates: they download the show, edit the ads away and offer it without ads as a Torrent....
That's not how most pirates get TV content. They just capture the HD broadcast from the airwaves and edit out the ads. Most streaming/download has some sort of DRM so it's easier to just capture it when it airs (not to mention that's top resolution and surround sound).
I haven't seen BSG Razor yet, but friends who have said it was strong. I'll be gettin' the DVD.
And prayin', prayin', PRAYING that Galactica gets it's groove back in Season 4. So say we all.
...
Your friends are right about Razor, it rocked. It was nice to see some background on that b!t*h of a commander.
My wife first started watching it with me during Season 3 and we just lately started watching the mini, S1 & 2 on iTunes and our Apple TV once Razor aired. She's getting hooked. And this is a girl who loves romances. She loves Heroes which is another we watch together.
Um, shouldn't the headline read "NBC drops television shows from Apple's iTunes"
It really depends. That music company with a partly similar name (still a very separate company) didn't renew their contract but sales are still effectively on a month-to-month basis after a lapsed contract, where existing titles are still sold, but no new titles are. In this case, the old stuff is gone, but I don't know if it's publicly known if Apple pulled it or NBC did.
NBC says it needs advertisement to make enough money to make a profit on a TV series (that $1.99 a show wont cover that by far with the current amount of downloaders) so they don't want the Apple model.
The networks might make $0.35 per audience member in ad revenue for a full prime time episode. While they should be trying to get the most they can (maximize per-person x audience size), I think they are doing very well getting their ~$1.50 an episode from Apple.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zanshin
My television writer buddies knock down six-figure salaries for what amounts to about two hours of work a day when averaged across a calendar year. I wouldn't mind a sh*tty deal like that.
Some writers have even laughed openly on the radio (during recent interviews about the current strike) about how little they actually do for the amounts of money they make, but believe --like pro athletes -- that if the company is making more money off their work via net distribution, they ought to get a bigger slice of the pie.
For what it's worth, the WGA claims to not get anything at all from internet sales while they might make $0.04 a $20 DVD.
That's too bad, because I don't have time to sit in front of a TV to watch NBC's shows, and I watch them on the commuter train on my iPhone while going to work. Oh well, I guess NBC will have to do without another viewer of its programs.
I wanted to respond to the knuckedhead exec who claims Steve jobs is killing the music industry. If memory serves me correctly, the music industry was doing a really excellent job of that prior the the relief and genius of iTunes. I for one will never, ever visit an NBC website for content, TV shows are disposable content, don't these guys get it...who will ever pay more than a couple of dollars for ( no commercials on iTunes) 20 minutes of television grade content
They might be able to charge $2.99 for recent, hit, hour-long TV shows (like Heroes), while keeping $1.99 for half-hour shows... but anything above that, no way Jose. I just won't pay it. \
Guess NBC just doesn't get that they're killing the golden goose, which would make them just as dumb as the music industry, and that's quite a feat. That said, I doubt Jobs is showing significant flexibility either.
As Apple becomes increasingly successful, his 'my way or the highway' instincts seem to be coming to the fore. The prob is, we've seen this show before... failure sets up success, but success also sets up failure.
-- Apple's inflexible pricing: Zucker said that the decision to let its TV programming download deal with Apple expire wasn't difficult. "We had 40 percent of the market share on the video side of iTunes, we were most popular." Somewhat dismissively, Zucker noted the Apple deal was worth $15 million in profit to NBCU last year. "Still, that's nothing to sneeze at that, every dollar matters. But it wasn't the game changer for us that it was for Apple. We would like to be part of it. But nowhere [else] does the reseller set the wholesale price. We wanted price flexibility and greater protection against piracy. Over time, we hope to work all that out. In terms of replacing that, we have our content elsewhere with Amazon (NasdaqGS: AMZN - News) and NBC Direct. They don't have the scale that Apple has, but people are using it. We haven't replaced the $15 million, though, but we will and we hope to do it with Apple included at some point."
At least there's a bit of a conciliatory sentiment in the last sentence...
Zucker is correct in that NBC has the right to set the pricing of it's shows. And Apple maintains the option not to buy product (the shows) if they don't like the price.
Unless you're dealing in the world of private label, where Wal-Mart might say to a vendor "I want a pair of black socks at 25 cents per pair at a million pairs," where do retailers maintain primary pricing control?
It's not common at all.
Apple may be fearful that if they let NBC do it, then everyone would do it, and the whole venture would fail. But there has to be some faith in the free market - as much as I love The Office, I wouldn't pay $4.99 per episode for it, and most others wouldn't either. NBC would get the message, and the pricing would change.
Comments
What these film companies need to understand is that if you put the price too high, slap on too much DRM and people will either buy from another medium or switch to piracy. Maybe they do understand this, but their greed is fighting with the gree of people wanting things for free. Surely there is a middle road?
I think it's pretty hypocritical NBC whines about Apple's pricing policies, yet they pay their writers shi*."
As a currently-striking member of the WGA, I can assure you that writers are well-compensated. Even the non-union shows I've worked on pay writers close to six figures.
The strike entails much more than DVD/Internet compensation. Anyone interested in what's happening should check out http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com.
one way to stick it to nbc and their greedy corporate puppets.
Im sure that future episodes will be widely available on bittorrent - and guess what - those files can be made to work on an iPod or an Apple TV or computer or anything else. NBC just doesn't get it. Why make pay harder than free?
For someone that would download from bittorent, would they just download NBC shows or would they download every show that is available?
"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," he said.
I never bought music before iTunes came along. NEVER. Too many albums with 9 crap songs and two good ones. Now I buy music. One track at a time.
If anything $1.99 is too much for a tv show. Especially when it's not complete, like the WKRP fiasco. iTunes needs to provide a substantial discount for people buying an entire season too.
I was close to buying the Office, but it was a little too much money. I'll extract from my TiVo instead.
I won't be looking for shows anywhere else either, like Amazon. Apple and iTunes provided the best experience. Simple interface, plays on iPods and computers and Apple TV. Watching the networks try to provide a comparable experience is a joke. Shows that you can't even download?! How have these people stayed in business so long?
It sounds like I'm all over the map, but here's the bottom line. iTunes is the best option the networks have right now. Pulling the plug before they have a better plan in place doesn't make any sense for them or their shareholders. I'd like to see NBC explain to GE how losing the iTunes revenue stream makes sense for their investors.
Yep, as expected, Galactica is gone from iTunes
I don't get cable and I don't like waiting for DVD so the surprises are spoiled by the time I watch. So I subscribed to BSG until now.
I was hoping to buy BSG Razor from iTunes, but it's not happening. (Luckily I think my library will have that DVD pretty soon though.)
It's hard to say if that's a truly big loss yet, unfortunately.
Galactica was brilliant in the Miniseries, Season 1 and much of Season 2. But then, late in S2, the quality started to decline... to my horror. That was likely due to them going from 13 episode seasons to 20 eppy seasons. As Ron Moore, their showrunner, said, "It's harder to make each one special" under those conditions. Just not enough time.
Whatever the case, Season 3 was not very good at all. It was just average TV, for the most part, which is bad by Galactica standards.
Hopefully, with the very long hiatus after Season 3, they've had a chance to get the quality back up. I haven't seen BSG Razor yet, but friends who have said it was strong. I'll be gettin' the DVD.
And prayin', prayin', PRAYING that Galactica gets it's groove back in Season 4. So say we all.
...
Is anybody outside of the USA able to download television shows or full-length movies from iTunes yet?
In Canada, you can still only get movie trailers and music videos. What's the situation elsewhere?
Yep. I'm near Scotland and I downloaded The English Patient through iTunes. Also recently got a John Mayer video.
Yep, as expected, Galactica is gone from iTunes
I don't get cable and I don't like waiting for DVD so the surprises are spoiled by the time I watch. So I subscribed to BSG until now.
I was hoping to buy BSG Razor from iTunes, but it's not happening. (Luckily I think my library will have that DVD pretty soon though. I won't have to wait a full season.)
It sucks as I too am a BIG BSG fan.
Total downer.
They forget to add that they already make a huge profit on every TV show, because when broadcasted on TV it is full of advertisement. Putting the shows on iTunes is just a small additional income.
But they are afraid that downloadable "on demand" TV, like iTunes soon become the future, and then they wont make "enough" money from that $1.99 a show. (although I personally believe that they just want to make the max amount of money.)
But they also have no clue on HOW to create a (for them) working business model. So they try free online, but crippled; with ads, low quality, only in streaming... you might as well watch TV or video tape it!
And, most importantly, they forget people are handy enough to find it for free online without those restrictions... just like they do with music.
The only way to combat "pirating" tv series is by offering the closest possible alternative: ad free, for a low price, just like iTunes offers.
Some say offering FREE downloadable TV shows, with only some ads at the start and end, without restrictions (it has to work on all the different apparatus) is the solution, I think this solution only makes life easier for pirates: they download the show, edit the ads away and offer it without ads as a Torrent....
For someone that would download from bittorent, would they just download NBC shows or would they download every show that is available?
It depends on the person. Some people download everything. Other people buy what is available and only pirate when they don't have the option to buy.
NBC's actions aren't going to make a difference with the first group, but they'll lose customers in the second.
If NBC really wanted to raise prices on downloadable TV content, they'd need to justify it somehow. I could only see paying more if they gave you a rebate on the DVD's or something like that.
Wouldn't that be appealing to customers? Buy the season in advance for like $50, then get the $35 DVD for free when it ships?
Some say offering FREE downloadable TV shows, with only some ads at the start and end, without restrictions (it has to work on all the different apparatus) is the solution, I think this solution only makes life easier for pirates: they download the show, edit the ads away and offer it without ads as a Torrent....
That's not how most pirates get TV content. They just capture the HD broadcast from the airwaves and edit out the ads. Most streaming/download has some sort of DRM so it's easier to just capture it when it airs (not to mention that's top resolution and surround sound).
I haven't seen BSG Razor yet, but friends who have said it was strong. I'll be gettin' the DVD.
And prayin', prayin', PRAYING that Galactica gets it's groove back in Season 4. So say we all.
...
Your friends are right about Razor, it rocked. It was nice to see some background on that b!t*h of a commander.
My wife first started watching it with me during Season 3 and we just lately started watching the mini, S1 & 2 on iTunes and our Apple TV once Razor aired. She's getting hooked. And this is a girl who loves romances. She loves Heroes which is another we watch together.
NBC corporate sucks.
Um, shouldn't the headline read "NBC drops television shows from Apple's iTunes"
It really depends. That music company with a partly similar name (still a very separate company) didn't renew their contract but sales are still effectively on a month-to-month basis after a lapsed contract, where existing titles are still sold, but no new titles are. In this case, the old stuff is gone, but I don't know if it's publicly known if Apple pulled it or NBC did.
Looks like Universal won't be getting any more "Battlestar Galactica" money from me. Your loss, pal.
Nor DVD money...if it Season 3 ever comes out in my lifetime.
NBC says it needs advertisement to make enough money to make a profit on a TV series (that $1.99 a show wont cover that by far with the current amount of downloaders) so they don't want the Apple model.
The networks might make $0.35 per audience member in ad revenue for a full prime time episode. While they should be trying to get the most they can (maximize per-person x audience size), I think they are doing very well getting their ~$1.50 an episode from Apple.
My television writer buddies knock down six-figure salaries for what amounts to about two hours of work a day when averaged across a calendar year. I wouldn't mind a sh*tty deal like that.
Some writers have even laughed openly on the radio (during recent interviews about the current strike) about how little they actually do for the amounts of money they make, but believe --like pro athletes -- that if the company is making more money off their work via net distribution, they ought to get a bigger slice of the pie.
For what it's worth, the WGA claims to not get anything at all from internet sales while they might make $0.04 a $20 DVD.
Guess NBC just doesn't get that they're killing the golden goose, which would make them just as dumb as the music industry, and that's quite a feat. That said, I doubt Jobs is showing significant flexibility either.
As Apple becomes increasingly successful, his 'my way or the highway' instincts seem to be coming to the fore. The prob is, we've seen this show before... failure sets up success, but success also sets up failure.
...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Zucker#NBC_career
Um, shouldn't the headline read "NBC drops television shows from Apple's iTunes"
YES and also add "and makes AppleTV even more useless."
Zucker is correct in that NBC has the right to set the pricing of it's shows. And Apple maintains the option not to buy product (the shows) if they don't like the price.
Unless you're dealing in the world of private label, where Wal-Mart might say to a vendor "I want a pair of black socks at 25 cents per pair at a million pairs," where do retailers maintain primary pricing control?
It's not common at all.
Apple may be fearful that if they let NBC do it, then everyone would do it, and the whole venture would fail. But there has to be some faith in the free market - as much as I love The Office, I wouldn't pay $4.99 per episode for it, and most others wouldn't either. NBC would get the message, and the pricing would change.