From a TechCrunch commenter on the topic of NBC jumping ship on iTunes:
Feeling shafted by NBC’s proposed $4.99 an episode price hike that got their new fall season kicked out of iTunes?
Kevin Wick has been kind enough to look up the contact information for the NBC Executives that are key to getting this situation reversed.
Amy Zelvin, NBC Universal Digital Media Communications, (212) 664-7436 amy.zelvin@nbcuni.com
Joe Libonati, NBC Universal Television Group Publicity, (818) 840-3050 joe.libonati@nbcuni.comJeff Zucker, President and Chief Executive Officer, NBC Universal (212) 664-4444 jeff.zucker@nbcuni.com
Ben Silverman, Co-Chairman, NBC Entertainment and NBC Universal Television Studio ben.silverman@nbcuni.com
I can understand the desire NBC might have, albeit a kneejerk desire, to host/sell/distribute their content via their own vehicles, thus retaining all the money from said process.
I hope they can understand that if the process of buying content and getting it onto my iPod is not 99% as easy as it is with iTunes, they have zero chance of converting me. None. I’ve bought something like 100 TV show episodes off of iTunes at this point (as well as many movies), many of which are in the form of full seasons. I don’t buy these sames shows on DVD even though they’re more easily transportable, sometimes cheaper, and higher quality because it would be a pain in the ass to do it any other way. (Ripping, downloading from another site, etc.) Much more than $1.99/episode? Not doable for my salary.
I’m reminded of the process many product/content manufacturers went through in the early days of the internet when Amazon started selling products well. Many businesses believe that they could do just as well as these punks at Amazon by selling direct on their own sites and/or portals. Most of those efforts failed, and they ended up coming back to Amazon anyway. Why not learn from history and not repeat the same mistake?
There is not a sliver of hope in my mind that NBC will turn away from the greed-driven course they’re currently on. Sad, really. I’ve emailed the people above and have specifically invited them to post a comment in this discussion. Hopefully we see them here soon.
UPDATE: Apple has declined to carry NBC shows in iTunes. The NBC contract extends through December, but instead of discontinuing shows halfway through the season, Apple is simply not including them at all.
The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99.
