Aug
31
Posted on 08-31-2007 at 02:07pm
Say Goodbye to The Office and Heroes
Filed Under (Television, Technology, Business & Development) by Katherine Coble on 08-31-2007

…on iTunes that is.
NBC Universal is letting their deal with Apple expire in December.

NBC Universal is ending its iTunes support, meaning no more “Heroes,” “The Office” or “To Catch a Predator” in the iTunes store after December, when the current contract expires. What makes the rift somewhat serious for Apple is that NBC is iTunes’ biggest video supplier, pulling in about 40 percent of downloads. On top of that, it could spur a mini-revolt among other media companies like CBS and News Corp., whose contracts are also coming due.

The issue seems to be the same old, same old: NBC wants to bump prices and complicate the packaging/pricing structure, while Apple ostensibly wants to keep things the way they are: simple.

Here’s what ticks me off…I already think $1.99 per episode is expensive for a 30 minute show, and approaching expensive for some hour-long shows. But I’ve paid it on a couple of occasions–when my TiVo missed an episode or I was having an off day and needed some Season One of The Office. However, I don’t think I’d ever pay more than $1.99. And I don’t know that NBC gets that.

I also think they don’t get what good PR it is to have downloadable episodes. In fact, I’m now slavishly devoted to two shows (F/X’s Damages and NBC’s Friday Night Lights) because I was able to get caught up on the show later through downloadable media.

I think these moves to take shows off iTunes in order to force a rate hike are short-sighted.

Terry Heaton also has some thoughts.

The gamble NBCU is making is that they can still make business decisions with their content that don’t include their customers. While I do believe that serious “Office” fans will go where they have to go to get their downloads, forcing everybody to do this is ultimately a fool’s folly, for most people will opt for the path of least resistance.
…

In the end, though — and has been evidenced so many times in recent years — it is foolish to mess with empowered consumers. Who negotiates for them?

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Comments

jag on 31 August, 2007 at 2:14 pm #

You know you just gave me a heart attack, don’t you?


Rick Maynard on 31 August, 2007 at 3:09 pm #

Actually, I expect them to go to a model where you watch them on the site for free— It still allows them to bring in ad revenue that certainly gives them a bigger slice of the pie than the $1.99 they got selling it on iTunes.

NBC did that fairly recently with the short-lived “The Black Donnellys”. CBS does it now with “Big Brother”. I haven’t watched BB online, but with “Black Donnellys”, there were ads, although minimal, and you could watch them directly from the site.

I don’t think you could save them (I never tried, and the likelihood of them still being there since Donnellys was released on DVD recently is slim), but you could do it. And truth be told, I expect this to be the real direction television will go in the future— Instead of tuning in the TV every Thursday for “The Office”, they make a new episode available every Thursday that you can stream to your TV through a computer device. I could be wrong, but we’ll see.

Most likely, we’ll see NBC offering it directly from their website, either sold or ad-supported, directly rather than through a third party storefront.


Michael on 31 August, 2007 at 11:15 pm #

Is this a strategy to drive more viewers to NBC.com? I know that in the case of FNL an Heroes, NBC left the full run of episodes from the first season on-line for fans to watch and catch-up on in their own time. It was free and it included ads. I know you can’t put the episodes on your iPod as you can with iTunes….


lorena on 21 September, 2007 at 8:11 am #

no more The Office. No more Heroes. No more My Name is Earl. No more 30 Rock. No more Battlestar Gallactica (not on NBC, but they control its fate.) does this mean i have to buy a tv? i dont want to watch commercials,theres already plenty of advertising within the shows themselves… nbc is gonna be losing some fans.