“NBC couldn’t have worse timing,” Vince Horiuchi reports for The Salt Lake Tribune. “The Peacock network, home to great series like ‘The Office,’ ‘Heroes’ and ‘Friday Night Lights,’ cut itself off from iTunes earlier this month in a move that is sure to hurt NBC much more than it will Apple, which owns the downloadable music and video service.”
“It’s the most bone-headed move a television network can make right now. For one thing, NBC pulled out of its contract with Apple a week before the introduction of a whole new lineup of iPods, including the new iPod ‘touch,’ which has a 3.5-inch-wide screen perfect for viewing video,” Horiuchi reports.
“It also doesn’t help that this deal went sour just before the start of the fall TV season, when millions will be turning to iTunes to get episodes of new shows,” Horiuchi reports. “Finally, NBC, which is in fourth place in the ratings, needs iTunes to drum up interest in its series. Many credit the success of ‘The Office’ on iTunes for giving that sitcom a leg up on television.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Mike in Helsinki” for the heads up.]
Some of the “many” who credit iTunes for the success of “The Office,” include the NBC boneheads themselves.
While NBC’s move is derelict I’m not so sure that not being on iTunes is going to make or break them, at least not single-handedly.
@ @Edgy
No, I understand that ad revenue is what drives networks to make shows in the first place – they aren’t out to entertain us, they are out to make money.
What I’m saying is that the old model is going to die. They need to be smart enough to move and adjust. Well done product placement in sitcoms (the key being well done) as well as selling the shows ala iTunes is a way for them to monetize the new way of delivering shows. Put a tiny ad down in the corner of the video like what You Tube has started doing recently. They need to learn trhat they can’t stand still and expect the world to do so with them.
Figting change is only going to make them extinct.
I will not buy any media(tv show/song/whatever) with embedded advertising in it.
If I pay for the file there had better not be any on screen ads or commercials in it or I will never buy anything from that site again.
Now, answer honestly, how popular would Tivo or iTunes really be if you had NO WAY to skip through or completely avoid 15 minutes of advertising every hour?
All good points, but I think what the studios are missing is that they can have their cake and eat it too. The advertisers pay for the demonstrable viewers in that timeslot. Apparently that’s more than enough money to keep producing shows. And they can charge a completely different segment of the population a straight fee to watch it anytime that population wishes too. And I would argue that the overlap is rather limited.
NBC is not bright enough to grasp the fact that they can have two revenue streams, and they don’t have to worry about the mechanisms of either one.
NBC is not required to physically get the shows into your television, that’s the job of cable and satellite providers. And as for the digital media types, all they had to do was make the content available to Apple, and Apple handled that infrastructure. But nooooooooooo, that’s too easy.
I work for GE – Email Jeff Zucker – President and CEO of NBC Universal at JEFF.ZUCKER@NBC.COM
I can’t believe that they left iTunes.