“Television networks took a leap into the unknown when they started selling their shows on Apple’s iTunes online store, but even in these early days, it’s starting to look as if that faith in digital downloads was well placed. Apple CEO Steve Jobs welcomed Walt Disney Co. and Pixar Animation Studios content to the service in October. Now there are 40 different series, each episode of which costs a standardized $1.99 to purchase, and more are on the way,” Chris Marlowe reports for The Hollywood Reporter. “Nobody will disclose numbers for these television downloads. It’s easy, however, to keep an eye on the iTunes download chart, which usually shows NBC’s ‘The Office’ as the top full-length program, followed by ABC’s ‘Lost’ and Comedy Central’s ‘South Park.'”
“Ben Silverman, an executive producer of ‘The Office,’ whose ratings have not quite matched the critical acclaim, praised NBC for its willingness to ‘dive into the iTunes relationship quickly.’ He credited the download capability with boosting broadcast viewership,” Marlowe reports. Silverman noted that ‘The Office,’ which went into reruns just before the video iPod’s first Christmas, was boosted by people who discovered the show when they were browsing to find something to put on their new device.”
“‘Overall, we’ve seen our ratings increase for the shows we have on iTunes, and it continues to pick up momentum,’ said Albert Cheng, executive vp digital media at Disney-ABC Television Group,” Marlowe reports. “He said ‘Lost’ was doing ‘extraordinarily well’ on iTunes, a fact he attributed primarily to the overlap in demographics between the broadcast viewers and iPod users. ‘We wanted to put our best shows on the platform, but you never really know what you’re going to get,’ Cheng said. ‘Video has surpassed everyone’s expectations, but I do believe iPod is basically a music device and video is an additional benefit to having one.'”
Full article here.
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C’mon FOX!!!
I have to say I agreed with Steve Jobs that video just would not work… glad to see I was wrong and then some
Well, I’m not signing up with The Hollywood Reporter to read the entire article, but I get the gist. So WHY on EARTH would CBS make Survivor available for downloads, but via Windows Media and Windows OS users only? Eh, what do we (the consumers) know anyway!
<http://www.cbs.com/ondemand/episodes.php?mpid=2009>
As a news-junkie, I could care less about the show’s availability, but from a business standpoint on CBS’s part, I just don’t get it.
Does Fox have any shows worth downloading?
And don’t tell me 24, I fell off that bus in the 1st season.
GOW: I think the point everyone missed is that consumers of video (TV) have been waiting a loooong time to be able to use this information (ie watch shows) under our terms, not the broadcast networks’ terms. I would much prefer to watch a TV show or movie when and where I choose, rather than when and where a network tells me I have to. DVRs started making a difference, but you’re still locked into your living room. The video iPod, PSP, and portable DVD players are creating a situation where consumers control their experience. That’s what people have been waiting for, and that’s why this has taken off so rapidly.
Oddly enough, people talk about control over the living room, but it’s really all about the liberation of the “living room.” Even the original iPod works because what it does is take that whole CD collection (and then some) and put it wherever a person wants to be, rather than forcing them to come home (or possibly the car) to find that song they want to hear.
Control of content and experience is what this is all about.
Apple does not license Fairplay, so CBS has to use WMP for WIndows to sell shows from the CBS site… The only way Mac users would be able to purchase CBS’s programming is via iTunes which they are supposedly currently negotiating.
Tommy Boy,
Arrested Development. More info and MDN take here
I don’t own a video iPod, nor do I have any desire to (well maybe a little), but I download these shows. For me it has very little to do with the iPod than it has to do with watching the show when I want to, and doing so sans commercials.
Regarding FOX…
“Mr Murdoch said in the interview with Newsweek, to be published today, he also had no plans, for now, to offer Fox television shows via iTunes as other networks had done.” (compliments http://www.news.com.au Feb-6-06)
Ole’ Rupert has been buying up internet concerns for a while now, the latest being myspace.com, and I think he has some very specific plans of his own, which don’t include iTunes.
Before I buy any tv show from any download source, if I am paying money, I want full quality so I can watch it on my big tv.
I know not of which I speak since I have not tried buying a show from Apple yet.
But if anybody has purchased a show from Apple, how does it look on a big tv?
Go ahead and GIVE me tv shows with commercials. But if I am paying for it, I want good quality and no commercials.
I hope this gets to Europe – for Apple’s sake.
The BBC archives (film and sound) are huge. It would be a good form of income for the BBC as well as Apple.
Together with all the other European TV stations, it would secure and strengthen Apple’s lead here.
Charko,
Great idea!!!!!
MegaMe: I find the quality of the video (and audio) is just fine for my TV (both a small one, and a large, RP 42″ TV). It looks pretty blocky when watching the shows on my laptop screen, but the resolution of my laptop is FAR higher than the rez. on either of my TVs.
I too would like about twice the rez. for these shows, but honestly they look just fine on standard TVs. I’m sure you’d notice on an HD TV, but I don’t have one yet, so can’t say for sure…
I would love it if when this does come to Europe you could buy content from other countries’ channels.
Although saying that, I can’t think of anything worth paying for on Italian TV. It really is totally pants, and I don’t know how they all stand it.
I’m not going to pay to download shows at such low resolution. 640×480 is my minimum. I know Steve chose what he did because that’s the iPod’s resolution, but it doesn’t make sense for someone viewing on anything bigger.
The quality per pixel is great, but stretched on even my small 1024×768 display, it’s worse than a bittorrent download.
I agree with those that say Apple should provide music in a lossless format when they pay for it. They should also allow us to download a file we’ve already purchased in case we lose it in a freak mousing accident.
“Does Fox have any shows worth downloading?”
Well, I don’t watch Fox much anymore but I would think there would be a market for The Simpsons. Isn’t American Idol a popular show, too? Though, given the white trash quality of the show, the demographics might not match up. And despite what you might feel about 24, I would think it has a market also. The world is not all about you, Tommy Boy.
“The BBC archives (film and sound) are huge. It would be a good form of income for the BBC as well as Apple.”
BBC (online) doesn’t even use QT, do they?
I suspect what may be of substantialt significance here is the demonstrated success in popularizing and monetizing a whole new video formatting consisting of low cost, quickly downloadable, low resolution (when enlarged) content. This is a big deal, particularly since it substantially addresses a potentially major bottleneck in the whole video downloading scheme which likely will be the cost factors associated with ISP imposed bandwidth usage caps.
“I agree with those that say Apple should provide music in a lossless format when they pay for it.”
You presume that Apple has the power to do so. Apple doesn’t own the content they provide.
For me, the quality is completely fine. It’s weird I know, but its the content of the shows I like that makes them worth watching, not the resolution or special effects. That being said, it would be nice if the resolution was better, but it’s certainly not a deal breaker. I glady trade in a little res for 40% of my time watching add inducing commercials.
Megame, I have a 37″ HDTV that I watch the TV shows on, and it doesn’t look bad. You can see the jaggies, but not too distracting. It’s somewhat similar to VCR quality. Try it yourself; it’s only $2 to try it.
is that on most TVs this looks very good compared to regular TV (really, plug your iPod into TV and try)
but mainly because the higher quality we all want would take 4x the bandwidth and 4x the HD space and 4x the download time and 4x the encoding time and….
“from a business standpoint on CBS’s part, I just don’t get it.”
Well, it’s attempt to “eliminate the middleman.” Survivor and CBS are big enough names, in theory, that they don’t need to the iTMS publicity. People will be more than willing to go directly to CBS.
From a business standpoint it makes perfect sense. CBS gets to keep all of the money.
The BBC did not use QuickTime some months ago.
Bad!
John