“NBC Universal said [Wednesday] that it would soon permit consumers to download many of NBC’s most popular programs free to personal computers and other devices for one week immediately after their broadcasts,” Bill Carter reports for The New York Times.
“The service, which is set to start in November after a test period in October, comes less than three weeks after NBC Universal said it was pulling its programs out of the highly successful iTunes service of Apple Inc. That partnership fell apart because of a dispute over Apple’s iTunes pricing policies and what NBC executives said were concerns about lack of piracy protection,” Carter reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple and NBC remain in negotiations. NBC TV shows remain for sale at Apple’s iTunes Store.
“Under the new NBC service, called NBC Direct, consumers will be able to download, for no fee, NBC programs… But the files, which would be downloaded overnight to home computers, would contain commercials that viewers would not be able to skip through. And the file would not be transferable to a disk or to another computer. The files would degrade after the seven-day period and be unwatchable,” Carter reports.
“‘Kind of like ‘Mission: Impossible,’ only I don’t think there would be any explosion and smoke,’ said Jeff Gaspin, the president of the NBC Universal Television Group,” Carter reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Also, if you don’t wise up quickly, Jeff, just like your career and the careers of many others that your kind always take with you. Let’s see: predicting the future of technology: Steve Jobs or Jeff Gaspin? Puleeze. Jeff, wake up, you dumb-ass. Give it to us in an acceptable way or we will take it. Period. End of discussion. Get it now, Jeffie?
Carter continues, “The programs will initially be downloadable only to PCs with the Windows operating system, but NBC said it planned to make the service available to Mac computers and iPods later… Chris Crotty, an analyst for iSuppli, an independent firm that specializes in analysis of new electronic media, said of the NBC move, ‘I think it’s a stretch.’ He argued that consumers have shown they are extremely happy with the iTunes service and that it would not be attractive to consumers to have to range far and wide over a number of services to find the programs they want to download… ‘The consumers have decided they want to get their content from iTunes.'”
Carter reports, “Mr. Crotty said NBC had come across to consumers as ‘highly greedy’ in its dispute with Apple. Apple reported that NBC was insisting it raise the price of some downloads on NBC shows to $4.99 from the $1.99 iTunes charges for all programs. NBC hotly denied that… But, Mr. Gaspin said, ‘piracy was and is our No. 1 priority.’ He said that the music industry had been devastated by the free exchange of music, much of it facilitated by iTunes.”
MacDailyNews Take: Jeff Gaspin is your typical know-nothing, BS-shoveling network suit. The sooner these empty-headed dinosaurs like Gaspin die off, the better. Until then, think of P2P as a sort of giant meteor that users can magically deploy in surgical fashion, so as to not take out all of the other old media types that happen to “get it.”
Full article here.
Careful there, you’re just breeding had with ad homonym attacks and lazy rhetoric. If you have a point to make, do it intelligently or it only does your cause a disservice.
God bless America.
. . . I meant to say, “. . . just breeding hate . . .”
>BustingTheSkullsOfIdiots
That is some twisted sarcasm. I laugh only because you are insane.
I’ve only used piratebay to download two songs that iTunes was forcing me to buy the whole album for and an audiobook that I had on a whole bunch of cassettes that I couldn’t figure out how to transfer to digital…
But this makes me curious about how to download tv shows and movies…
Guess I’ll be figuring that process out pretty soon — if, that is, NBC comes up with anything worth watching.
The only thing good on NBC is golf. None of their so called primetime shows are worth a damn.
The whole point in paying $1.99 for free TV is to (1) avoid the need watch (or even skip through) commercials, (2) download it whenever I want, and (3) watching it whenever I want to watch.
Why would I go through the trouble of downloading these NBC shows if I have to watch the commercials, I can only get the show for a period of one week after broadcast, and if I wait more than one week to watch it, it “degrades”? That’s more inconvenient than recording live programming on a “primitive” tape VCR.
Note to Jeff Gaspin:
UM…I have Parallels…so UM I can watch your content…on my MacBook. Gotta love the intel switch.
When your commercials come on…I can go watch a clip on YouTube and then come back after the commercial break.
Turano
Hey NBC, I have a great idea. Why don’t you add commercials to your programs and then broadcast them over air free to anyone who wants to receive and watch them.
Oops, that was invented almost a century ago… 🙁
Well, your idea is almost as good as this old one.
Fsck NBC!
I gotta say that NBC seems to be run by clueless morons. In the last year the suits have: 1) Denied any reasonable promotion to Aaron Sorkin’s “Studio 60” — effectively killing one of the most literate shows on broadcast TV; 2) Pushed Brian Williams and NBC News into “soft” features, thus gutting a respected broadcast; 3) Picked a stupid fight with Apple over iTunes. It is no wonder NBC is an also-ran network.
The way this country is headed, I don’t think it is very deserving of God’s blessings. I rather doubt if He is impressed by the mindless chest-thumping flag wavers here. Patriotism can be a double edged sword. Nationalism is even scarier.
@ J
Thanks for the reply.
It was as physically secure system, not tied to the outside world at all. What they wanted were Tempest rated computers, comm limnes, etc. The point was, once they pushed the “Transmit” button, the data left a justifiably secure computer, into a chain of several other computers, to the transmitter. The process went as past as the computers could make it. Not much security advantage in protectingthe secret for a few extra milliseconds, and at great cost.
As others have pointed out, all it takes is one person with an Elgato Eye and BitTorrent connection, and NBC’s “secret” is out.
If the worst of our troubles were chest-thumping, patriotism, and nationalism, things would be easy.
NBC has done the right thing. I applaud their decision to move away from iTunes. Jess Gaspin has just moved up a notch closer to the genius levels of Bill Gates and Ballmer. The DRM scheme he is employing is pure genius and a great marketing move. Imagine if they really made your files suddenly go up in smoke visually on your player, just like Mission Impossible. Brilliant!!!! Users will just want to buy and continue to use their services just to see that in action. I can’t wait to start using their services and just have the sheer joy and fun of watching my files implode after seven days. Even if they change the service that you have to pay over and over again, its well worth the money to see that in action. Too bad Apple doesn’t have any clever ways of implementing DRM.
“…just breeding hate”?
BustingTheSkullsOfIdiots is telling the TRUTH! If you don’t like it you can move to Iran. This is America—if you don’t like it, LEAVE. It doesn’t creep me out that BustingTheSkullsOfIdiots is homophobic, either.
I wonder if NBC is going to be giving away Notre Dame games for free, too? *snicker*
I thought the original Napster started the illegal downloads of music. iTunes is working to fix the problem, NOT facilitate it.
Morons!
@busting & @analkin
a. You’re the idiots. Go bust each other’s skulls.
b. You wouldn’t know TRUTH if was wrapped in Bible pages and shoved up your ass.
c. This is my America not yours; get your facts straight.
d. It is your emerica that is most ideologically aligned to that of Iran, so that Middle Eastern ticket has your name on it.
e. Jump on the boat before the other bushtards leave without you.
f. Better yet, shoot yourselves; you can use my gun.
correction: @@anaknipedro not @analkin
A recent Australian survey of broadband users said 40 percent of subscribers use the service to download movies and TV shows via p2p. We’ve seen some spread of this already and people just independently download and make permanent copies.
@ BustingTheSkullsOfIdiots
So do you bust your own skull?
@ @ anaknipedro
This is America, where you have the right to disagree. If you want to embrace fascism perhaps you’re the one who should leave the country.
Oh, and please read the Bill of Rights before you even pretend to know anything about the principles upon which America was founded.
I don’t buy this Piracy concern… The videos cannot be burned or copied. And I haven’t heard of any way to defeat this protection. Not that I would do so if I did mind you.
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NBCU announces name change to better reflect company: NBCFU
But, Mr. Gaspin said, ‘piracy was and is our No. 1 priority.’ He said that the music industry had been devastated by the free exchange of music, much of it facilitated by iTunes.”
Surely Apple could sue based on this misinformation?