A business model that doesn't take into account what is happening in the real world is doomed. If Apple doesn't turn everything inside out now, some other company will. To operate in denial is to guarantee failure.
Since you end up paying more per episode for a la carte downloading than you do with a DVD/Blu-ray boxset, that's why I find iTunes pricing extremely abusing if you want HD stuff.
$72/season for 24 episodes of a season compared to $50 for higher quality and you can do whatever you want with the disc just doesn't make sense to me in the long run. And because of that, I NEVER buy iTunes episodes. And since there's such a discrepancy, if I want to watch an episode on my iPhone, I torrent it since I will NOT support business models which exist to screw the customer of all their money (I do buy the Bluray when they get a bit cheaper).
$72/season for 24 episodes of a season compared to $50 for higher quality and you can do whatever you want with the disc just doesn't make sense to me in the long run.
Are you people just having a laugh or can you not see how getting the episodes the next day for 99¢ to have in your device as you are traveling and to watch offline (if needed) the next day with no ads couldn’t possibly be a good solution for someone over the internet-reliant-whilst-viewing, ad supported Hulu or the have-to-wait-up-to-a-year-for-the-discs-to-be-released-so-I-can-get caught-up-on-the-episode-I-missed-before-watching-the-rest-in-a-series-model?
I usually get my TV shows for torrents and never watch actual TV, but that doesn’t mean that this option is overpriced or stupid because it doesn’t fit my needs.
Along the lines of $1 being 'too cheap' to rent a show, I picked up the entire Stargate series (hey, light semi-SF my kids can watch...) of something like 220 episodes for $70 on DVD from Amazon, so $0.33/episode - purchased, not rented. It would have cost several times that on iTunes - upper $200's or into the $300's, IIRC.
Same for Farscape - iTunes would run $160, and buying on Amazon was $60 for something like 88 episodes plus bonus materials. Where in the HELL are these idiots coming up with this online pricing? Renting one time for a 20 minute show with no real distribution is set to cost more than buying full hour-long episodes on disc? I have to say... pound sand, studios, I'll pick it up cheaper elsewhere. Let me rent for $0.25 for older shows and $0.50 for newer stuff and we'll talk, guys.
Along the lines of $1 being 'too cheap' to rent a show, I picked up the entire Stargate series (hey, light semi-SF my kids can watch...) of something like 220 episodes for $70 on DVD from Amazon, so $0.33/episode - purchased, not rented. It would have cost several times that on iTunes - upper $200's or into the $300's, IIRC.
Same for Farscape - iTunes would run $160, and buying on Amazon was $60 for something like 88 episodes plus bonus materials. Where in the HELL are these idiots coming up with this online pricing? Renting one time for a 20 minute show with no real distribution is set to cost more than buying full hour-long episodes on disc? I have to say... pound sand, studios, I'll pick it up cheaper elsewhere. Let me rent for $0.25 for older shows and $0.50 for newer stuff and we'll talk, guys.
WTF is wrong with some of you? You?re comparing TV shows that have been off the air for years to the ability to rent or buys shows the day after they air.
Cost has nothing to do with what it's worth to rent the program. I'm not sure what people are willing to pay. iTunes has demonstrated the markets success with 99 cent songs. TV programs so far are a different product, most of which can be viewed for free at the network homepage or via Hulu. It can be viewed on these sites as many times as the consumer wants without a fee, other than the time it takes to watch the 30 second commercial pieces. Maybe for some this inconvenience is worth the trade off, but I don't think the benefit of an ad free experience in this case is enough to warrant even 99 cent rentals, let alone a higher price. If warner brothers wants to charge more for the product, let them sell it. If people buy it, then I suppose the price will prove itself worth it. I've purchased one full season of a program on iTunes. I enjoy it. But as a consumer with limited resources, and one who enjoys film and good quality story writing, I'm willing to watch commercials (even in the theatre), or spend a few minutes writing emails or channel surfing during the short break.
Are you people just having a laugh or can you not see how getting the episodes the next day for 99¢ to have in your device as you are traveling and to watch offline...
You make a fair point but for $10 a month and a slingbox (apx $99 one time) I can do a DVR and see their crap and everyone else's. So sure I might miss an episode cause the DVR had a brain fart and/or didn't have room or I forgot etc so then I'd be left with either renting and/or finding alternative ways to view the missed episode OR simply forget about it since one missed program isn't gonna destroy my world (like it might have when I was younger).
Now at 99 cents that means I'd need to have 10 shows per month that I find palatable enough to want to view... Now given the current caliber of content coming from the studios you might be right...
Hey all I know is if the studios want to make accessing their programming difficult and or expensive then they are certainly succeeding. The problem is kids today are not a slave to the boob-tube like us kids that grew up in the 70's and 80's... These kids have A TON of other ways to amuse themselves and speaking as someone who has a niece and a nephew they don't watch any of the major network programming at all. (I guess Saturday morning cartoons aren't as great as I remember em).
Hey if they think their being smart squeezing out every dime they can they've got another thing coming when the kids of today continue to NOT watch their programming.
Are you people just having a laugh or can you not see how getting the episodes the next day for 99¢ to have in your device as you are traveling and to watch offline (if needed) the next day with no ads couldn?t possibly be a good solution for someone over the internet-reliant-whilst-viewing, ad supported Hulu or the have-to-wait-up-to-a-year-for-the-discs-to-be-released-model-so-I-can-get caught-up-on-the-episode-I-missed-before-watching-the-rest-in-a-series-model?
You win the highest density of dashes per sentence and the most-words-linked-by-dashes-to-make-a-compound-noun awards!
Let's see. They're willing to have Amazon SELL the episodes for $1.99 to $2.99 each (mostly $1.99), but they won't rent them for $0.99?
Idiots.
I suspect it's a tacit admission that they don't really imagine most episodes sold in this fashion will get watched more than once. So a sale = a rental, in that sense. And they're looking and saying, hey, why accept $1 when we could get $2 or $3? They've got a model like this:
The current model (Model 1) has sales only. The proposed model (Model 2) has both...
Model 1: (2.99) * (#sales_no_matter_what) + (2.99) (#sales_who_would_rather_rent)
You and I feel that's not true. But it might be. If they're right, then it's inconvenient to you and me, but correct for them. If it's not true, then the guys who are going to a rental model will see an increase in their bottom line.
(all of this ignores Apple's cut, but that just changes the constants a bit)
Once again, we see a bunch of high paid, out of touch executives suggesting something that makes no sense. Frankly, higher quality TV might garner a higher rental price. What these bonehead executives need to do is consider what the true value of their product actually is. Bet they have never measured that ... though certainly somewhat subjective, you get what you pay for. 99 cents is the most I would pay for to rent (one time) some show.
Perhaps they need to look at their cost structure (you know, the $300 lunches on Rodeo Drive) before suggesting that $1 to rent (RENT!) a show is not enough.
I just bought House season 6 new on Blu-ray from half.com for $33. 21 episodes. That's $1.57/episode: I own it. There are no ads, no bumpers, no bugs, no banners and no ratings symbols. It's 1080p. The compression is the lowest you will ever see (and the audio is lossless surround sound).
This, dear executives, is the benchmark by which I am judging you.
I just bought House season 6 new on Blu-ray from half.com for $33. 21 episodes. That's $1.57/episode: I own it. There are no ads, no bumpers, no bugs, no banners and no ratings symbols. It's 1080p. The compression is the lowest you will ever see (and the audio is lossless surround sound).
This, dear executives, is the benchmark by which I am judging you.
How much is the DVD for this week?s episode of The Universe on total eclipses? I?m going on a flight tomorrow and I want to watch it on the plane.
I won't be dropping cable any time soon. Sure I have to endure commercials, but I find them a very useful break to deal with dinner and family. When I watch PBS I inevitably miss important action while I stir something on the stove, get a kid into pajamas, use the bathroom, etc. I know digital downloads would solve the pausing the show problem, but PBS shows aren't available on iTunes.
Cable gives me:
1. a choice of 24 hour cartoon channels for the kids
2. live sports
3. local news
4. game shows I would never pay for
5. $15/month off the cost of my internet and phone
If I miss an episode of a favourite drama I must have been doing something important. I can't imagine paying extra and trying to find time outside my normal TV watching hours to see it. I have far better things to do with my time and money.
You're all a bunch of out-of-touch relics. Due to your short-sightedness, millions of people will now download your shows, with all the commercials cut out, for free. so instead of receiving 99 cents per episode (or over $20 per season, nearly the cost of buying instead of renting--what a scam) you now get zilch.
congrats. and you wonder why your stock is going down.
So you can rent a TV series from Blockbuster 1 disc at a time. Each disc holds about 4 episodes. So each episode is valued at 99 cents in that model. How is Apple's different?
Let's not forget some discs have about 8 episodes on them, which means the value is half that.
Welcome to the digital age.
WRT Blockbuster, they buy a physical disk. They can then do pretty much anything they want with the disk, including selling it or renting it.
WRT Apple, they sign a contract for the right to create and transmit an additional copy of the work. So the rights they have are ceded by the content owner, with no First Sale Doctrine to protect the consumer.
As the consumer, I'm not interesting in paying more than $0.99 cents for a TV show. Watching a whole season of your show simply gets too expensive. It's not viable. I could spend my money on a lot of other things that would make more sense (like Netflix).
I'm sure Pepsi would prefer to charge $5.00 for a 2-liter, but the market demands cheaper products. Either figure out how to hit the $0.99 cent price point or don't expect many people to be buying your shows.
Thank you,
Andrew
P.S. If your high price points make people not buy your shows, don't blame it on piracy and go crying to the public. This is your problem, not ours. Pepsi doesn't blame poor sales on store theft, neither should you.
Although I totally agree with this, I have to think that Apple itself plays this game. I'd like a Macbook Pro, but it's too expensive for me. If you have the only game in town, people who really want to play will pay it. You may lose volume profit but, like Apple, gain high revenue. Granted $0.99 is way to high for a episode that may be good or junk, but it's their product and they have the right to price it. I personally think the studios are stupid and will regret their choice in the long term, but have you paid $5.00 for a medium bag of popcorn or $3.00 for half filled small box of candy in the theater lately? That on top of almost 10 bucks for the ticket. Yet people keep paying it!
Hows about we just start the old-fashioned boycott? Vote with our wallets and let WB find out what WE think the prices should be?
Of course, I don't watch any of that stuff so I'm already on board.
Unfortunately (like my other post) people WILL pay it if they want it. It's easy to call for a boycott when the product doesn't mean that much to you. The studios know through experience that the boycott will fail. I believe in your boycott, and I am strong willed, but then again, I do really like eating popcorn at the theater.
The theory behind boycotting is a sound one, but people have to be totally pissed off or willing to hold off on principle for it to work.
Comments
$72/season for 24 episodes of a season compared to $50 for higher quality and you can do whatever you want with the disc just doesn't make sense to me in the long run. And because of that, I NEVER buy iTunes episodes. And since there's such a discrepancy, if I want to watch an episode on my iPhone, I torrent it since I will NOT support business models which exist to screw the customer of all their money (I do buy the Bluray when they get a bit cheaper).
$72/season for 24 episodes of a season compared to $50 for higher quality and you can do whatever you want with the disc just doesn't make sense to me in the long run.
Are you people just having a laugh or can you not see how getting the episodes the next day for 99¢ to have in your device as you are traveling and to watch offline (if needed) the next day with no ads couldn’t possibly be a good solution for someone over the internet-reliant-whilst-viewing, ad supported Hulu or the have-to-wait-up-to-a-year-for-the-discs-to-be-released-so-I-can-get caught-up-on-the-episode-I-missed-before-watching-the-rest-in-a-series-model?
I usually get my TV shows for torrents and never watch actual TV, but that doesn’t mean that this option is overpriced or stupid because it doesn’t fit my needs.
Let's see. They're willing to have Amazon SELL the episodes for $1.99 to $2.99 each (mostly $1.99), but they won't rent them for $0.99?
Idiots.
You can buy them on DVD for apx 1.50 an episode and get extras and bonus crap.
Same for Farscape - iTunes would run $160, and buying on Amazon was $60 for something like 88 episodes plus bonus materials. Where in the HELL are these idiots coming up with this online pricing? Renting one time for a 20 minute show with no real distribution is set to cost more than buying full hour-long episodes on disc? I have to say... pound sand, studios, I'll pick it up cheaper elsewhere. Let me rent for $0.25 for older shows and $0.50 for newer stuff and we'll talk, guys.
Along the lines of $1 being 'too cheap' to rent a show, I picked up the entire Stargate series (hey, light semi-SF my kids can watch...) of something like 220 episodes for $70 on DVD from Amazon, so $0.33/episode - purchased, not rented. It would have cost several times that on iTunes - upper $200's or into the $300's, IIRC.
Same for Farscape - iTunes would run $160, and buying on Amazon was $60 for something like 88 episodes plus bonus materials. Where in the HELL are these idiots coming up with this online pricing? Renting one time for a 20 minute show with no real distribution is set to cost more than buying full hour-long episodes on disc? I have to say... pound sand, studios, I'll pick it up cheaper elsewhere. Let me rent for $0.25 for older shows and $0.50 for newer stuff and we'll talk, guys.
WTF is wrong with some of you? You?re comparing TV shows that have been off the air for years to the ability to rent or buys shows the day after they air.
Is 99 cents cheaper than Bit Torrent? No? Then get back on the iTunes bus!
Are you people just having a laugh or can you not see how getting the episodes the next day for 99¢ to have in your device as you are traveling and to watch offline...
You make a fair point but for $10 a month and a slingbox (apx $99 one time) I can do a DVR and see their crap and everyone else's. So sure I might miss an episode cause the DVR had a brain fart and/or didn't have room or I forgot etc so then I'd be left with either renting and/or finding alternative ways to view the missed episode OR simply forget about it since one missed program isn't gonna destroy my world (like it might have when I was younger).
Now at 99 cents that means I'd need to have 10 shows per month that I find palatable enough to want to view... Now given the current caliber of content coming from the studios you might be right...
Hey all I know is if the studios want to make accessing their programming difficult and or expensive then they are certainly succeeding. The problem is kids today are not a slave to the boob-tube like us kids that grew up in the 70's and 80's... These kids have A TON of other ways to amuse themselves and speaking as someone who has a niece and a nephew they don't watch any of the major network programming at all. (I guess Saturday morning cartoons aren't as great as I remember em).
Hey if they think their being smart squeezing out every dime they can they've got another thing coming when the kids of today continue to NOT watch their programming.
Are you people just having a laugh or can you not see how getting the episodes the next day for 99¢ to have in your device as you are traveling and to watch offline (if needed) the next day with no ads couldn?t possibly be a good solution for someone over the internet-reliant-whilst-viewing, ad supported Hulu or the have-to-wait-up-to-a-year-for-the-discs-to-be-released-model-so-I-can-get caught-up-on-the-episode-I-missed-before-watching-the-rest-in-a-series-model?
You win the highest density of dashes per sentence and the most-words-linked-by-dashes-to-make-a-compound-noun awards!
Let's see. They're willing to have Amazon SELL the episodes for $1.99 to $2.99 each (mostly $1.99), but they won't rent them for $0.99?
Idiots.
I suspect it's a tacit admission that they don't really imagine most episodes sold in this fashion will get watched more than once. So a sale = a rental, in that sense. And they're looking and saying, hey, why accept $1 when we could get $2 or $3? They've got a model like this:
The current model (Model 1) has sales only. The proposed model (Model 2) has both...
Model 1: (2.99) * (#sales_no_matter_what) + (2.99) (#sales_who_would_rather_rent)
Model 2: (0.99) * (#rentals_only) + (0.99) * (#sales_no_matter_what) + (2.99) (#sales_no_matter_what)
... so now, moving to Model 2 involves the following delta revenue:
OldModel - (2.00) * (#sales_who_would_rather_rent) + (0.99) * (#rentals_only)
Therefore it's a good move if #rentals_only > 2 * #sales_who_would_rather_rent.
You and I feel that's not true. But it might be. If they're right, then it's inconvenient to you and me, but correct for them. If it's not true, then the guys who are going to a rental model will see an increase in their bottom line.
(all of this ignores Apple's cut, but that just changes the constants a bit)
Let's hope it's the latter.
Perhaps they need to look at their cost structure (you know, the $300 lunches on Rodeo Drive) before suggesting that $1 to rent (RENT!) a show is not enough.
This, dear executives, is the benchmark by which I am judging you.
I just bought House season 6 new on Blu-ray from half.com for $33. 21 episodes. That's $1.57/episode: I own it. There are no ads, no bumpers, no bugs, no banners and no ratings symbols. It's 1080p. The compression is the lowest you will ever see (and the audio is lossless surround sound).
This, dear executives, is the benchmark by which I am judging you.
How much is the DVD for this week?s episode of The Universe on total eclipses? I?m going on a flight tomorrow and I want to watch it on the plane.
Cable gives me:
1. a choice of 24 hour cartoon channels for the kids
2. live sports
3. local news
4. game shows I would never pay for
5. $15/month off the cost of my internet and phone
If I miss an episode of a favourite drama I must have been doing something important. I can't imagine paying extra and trying to find time outside my normal TV watching hours to see it. I have far better things to do with my time and money.
You're all a bunch of out-of-touch relics. Due to your short-sightedness, millions of people will now download your shows, with all the commercials cut out, for free. so instead of receiving 99 cents per episode (or over $20 per season, nearly the cost of buying instead of renting--what a scam) you now get zilch.
congrats. and you wonder why your stock is going down.
So you can rent a TV series from Blockbuster 1 disc at a time. Each disc holds about 4 episodes. So each episode is valued at 99 cents in that model. How is Apple's different?
Let's not forget some discs have about 8 episodes on them, which means the value is half that.
Welcome to the digital age.
WRT Blockbuster, they buy a physical disk. They can then do pretty much anything they want with the disk, including selling it or renting it.
WRT Apple, they sign a contract for the right to create and transmit an additional copy of the work. So the rights they have are ceded by the content owner, with no First Sale Doctrine to protect the consumer.
Hi Warner Bros,
As the consumer, I'm not interesting in paying more than $0.99 cents for a TV show. Watching a whole season of your show simply gets too expensive. It's not viable. I could spend my money on a lot of other things that would make more sense (like Netflix).
I'm sure Pepsi would prefer to charge $5.00 for a 2-liter, but the market demands cheaper products. Either figure out how to hit the $0.99 cent price point or don't expect many people to be buying your shows.
Thank you,
Andrew
P.S. If your high price points make people not buy your shows, don't blame it on piracy and go crying to the public. This is your problem, not ours. Pepsi doesn't blame poor sales on store theft, neither should you.
Although I totally agree with this, I have to think that Apple itself plays this game. I'd like a Macbook Pro, but it's too expensive for me. If you have the only game in town, people who really want to play will pay it. You may lose volume profit but, like Apple, gain high revenue. Granted $0.99 is way to high for a episode that may be good or junk, but it's their product and they have the right to price it. I personally think the studios are stupid and will regret their choice in the long term, but have you paid $5.00 for a medium bag of popcorn or $3.00 for half filled small box of candy in the theater lately? That on top of almost 10 bucks for the ticket. Yet people keep paying it!
Hows about we just start the old-fashioned boycott? Vote with our wallets and let WB find out what WE think the prices should be?
Of course, I don't watch any of that stuff so I'm already on board.
Unfortunately (like my other post) people WILL pay it if they want it. It's easy to call for a boycott when the product doesn't mean that much to you. The studios know through experience that the boycott will fail. I believe in your boycott, and I am strong willed, but then again, I do really like eating popcorn at the theater.
The theory behind boycotting is a sound one, but people have to be totally pissed off or willing to hold off on principle for it to work.