As announced three months ago, NBC Universal TV channels (Bravo, mun2, NBC, NBC News, CNBC, NBC Sports, Sci Fi, Sleuth, Telemundo and USA) have disappeared from the networks available on Apple’s U.S. iTunes Store.
As the noted today by the Italian-language Website setteB.IT, some shows that are broadcast on NBC are still available on U.S. iTunes Store because they are produced from other Hollywood studios, like 20th Century Fox, ABC, Disney, Viacom, etc.
Full article (Google Italian-English translation) here.
NBC= Nothing But Crap
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NBC – Not Being Cool
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Oh well… I guess NBC doesn’t want me buying 30 rock, Heroes, or the Office. Oh well.
here we go again.
NBC will then complain about how bit-torrent is costing them millions….
NBC = No Balls CEOs
NBC = Nixon’s Butt Cheeks. (?) bittorrent, here I come!
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@maniMac
It’s not that NBC doesn’t want your money, it’s more like not enough people are paying to make it worth their effort.
Free shows supported by advertising gives maximum exposure and the opportunity to fudge the viewing numbers. Newspapers do it all the time, they “print up” 20,000 free copies a week and state a circulation of 40,000 based upon a assumption that each paper is read by at least two people.
Of course what is not counted is how many are used to wrap dead fish in chinatown, how many a bum uses as his mattress or how many are used as a cheap drop cloth by a housewife painting her kitchen.
Steve Jobs said something like TV Shows on iTMS was a experiment, because basically it’s a lot of hassle and only a minority of computer user types may actually pay and download for commercial free content.
Now if Apple allowed commercials and free TV shows, charged for content delivery and a small profit, they could be rolling in cash. But of course people may dump iTMS because of the commericals and dump iPods afterwards.
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Again, to repeat David Letterman – concerning the take over of NBC by General Electric years ago – in his ‘dumb guy’ voice:
Yea, we know all about making washing machines and light bulbs, so we should be able to run a TV network
BC
@Pete
Granted watching free TV on the internet is the best, but what if I…
1. Don’t want to be bothered by ads and I’m willing to pay $1.99 to not be bothered
2. I want to watch my media where I want & when I want to.
NBC is just greedy. They want to raise the price or force ad money from somewhere else.
Also, I believe the writer’s strike has everything to do with NBC pulling from iTunes. They don’t want that fueling the writers cause. I look for NBC shows to reappear after the writers strike is over.
@Pete,
I can’t help but wonder if it’s really about control for NBC. They seem to be taking the antics of the music labels to another level- that of whining about pricing, etc. NBC’s beef is that they don’t get to have a say- in other words, control.
I think they see that this (TV shows available on the ‘net) will have some kind of serious impact in the near future. Their problem is twofold: 1st- they can’t see the picture clearly because they don’t get tech yet. 2nd- they are still wanting to use the same old methodology. Both are going to get them… shall we say, hurt- bad.
Any additional thoughts?
I’m just glad I recently finished up the last season of Battlestar Galactica… I had to download it from iTunes.
I’m an honest man…
As been said many times before, music and video are different, music you listen to more than twice, video not so much. In other words, I think a subscription model will work for movies and tv shows.
NBC – Not Bringing Content
A “friend” just got last night’s “Friday Night Lights” from the web via bittorrent. All guilt is gone. Conscience is clear. NBC be damned and take the rest of the networks with you!
@BCKelly
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Some one else remembers that brilliant comment too
To be a little bit of messerschmidt here, it was when Westinghouse bought CBS 1995 Letterman said something about been there before with NBC and GE and then played the role of the Westinghouse CEO and said;
-We make refridgerators, ovens and stuff like that, sure we know how to run a network too!
And on the subject, who cares with the writers strike going on everything new are drying up fast on or off NBC/iTunes/Bittorrent anyway.
Not very good news. While I expected some blustering, I didn’t think it would come to this as it’s not good for anyone. Perhaps the game is not yet up?
Well let’s see how their ratings improve in a few months. I thought having shows on iTunes improved their revenues and saved some shows.
Deutsche Grammophone delivers its own music-site and on iTunes they refuse to delivre in the high DRM free quality. Universal …
@Harry
I have an old LP with Karajan stacked away somewhere that I missed so I actually downloaded that CD in DRM-free high quality mp3 from the DG Shop the other day, worked fine and came with a nice pdf-booklet too.
Still don’t get it….. why not allow NBC to charge whatever they want. If no one buys, so be it.
WHY DRIVE THEM TO THE COMPETITION?
@ibookfast
It so happens that certain html tags are <font size=”3″>allowable</font>.
Further font experiment:
<div style=”font-size:18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight:bold”>big font</div>
@MacGuy: “why not allow NBC to charge whatever they want.”
There’s a very simple reason for this. As someone stated on here before, variable pricing gives the impression that some content is worth more than other content. Apple wants all the content it sells to be the same price so some shows aren’t seen as more valuable or better based on price.
When you go to a movie theatre, they don’t discount some crappy movies and charge more for popular ones. They are all the same price, same thing goes here.
As far as NBC having the “right” to charge what they want, yes they certainly do, but not on iTS. The unfortunate thing for them is they won’t sell any content elsewhere.
Last week I wanted to watch Battlestar Galactica: Razor which I had missed on SciFi. Knowing I had downloaded previous episodes from iTunes I went there looking for the movie.
It’s not there. What the…Oh wait SciFi is owned by Universal.
Hello BitTorrent!
From what i understand about the music industry, the artists dont make much, if anything off there CD sales. They make all there money going on tours.
If this is the case, then the only people worried about the sales of CD’s is the producers.
Perhaps they need to re think the model.
Free tv shows via the internet supported by advertising that is the way to go.
These guys don’t get it. People, who own video-capable iPod or an iPhone, may want to watch TV Shows while sitting in bus or train.
If they don’t offer their content in downloadable, then there are other ways of getting that stuff in to your iPod and some of them don’t cost 1.99$ per episode.
MW: decision. It’s their decision.