Stinking peacock

NBC's attempt to spin this back in its favor ("Investment Tools" indeed) is pretty weak tea:

We never asked to double the wholesale price for our TV shows.

Yes, because $4.99 is not two times $1.99. It's two and a half times! Advantage NBC!

In fact, our negotiations were centered on our request for flexibility in wholesale pricing, including the ability to package shows together in ways that could make our content even more attractive for consumers.

Yeah! Because everyone enjoys being forced to spend more money than they wanted to, right?! Let's paraphrase NBC's Cory Shields, shall we?

If you liked "Heroes", you probably won't like "Raines" because "Heroes" is good and "Raines" isn't. Well, too bad, suckers, because we're only selling them together from now on! But, you are getting that crappy second show at a discount, because we value our viewer monkeys.

Er, I mean "customers". I meant to say "customers".

Now, who wouldn't like that?!

But seriously, this is all about two things: 1) trying to increase revenue for lousy NBC shows and 2) trying to reduce Apple's market dominance.

Do you know how you can tell NBC is in the wrong here? You can tell because even guys like Paul Thurrott think so. What more do you need? An pro-Apple/anti-NBC screed from George Ou? Because the horned one's not sure he could handle that.

The Macalope will give Michael Gartenberg the last humorous word:

Sometimes I think God put video content guys on the planet to make the music guys look progressive and visionary.

[Jim Ellison]

Elastic Demand

NBC seems to feel there is inelastic demand for their product, ie they can raise
the price and thus the profit. As most of the comments about this bone-headed
idea illustrate, demand is quite elastic: consumers are only willing to pay so
much before demand drops to near zero. The marginal cost of production is the
bandwidth to transfer (which is borne by Apple) and the residuals they pay the
actors. $1.99 for 30 minutes is ballpark when a DVD costs $14-24. $4.99 ==
no-sale.

[ppgreat]

An Open Email to NBC Universal

Please don't forget who your ultimate customer is!

www.stonethembas.com

[treestman]

NBC Issues A Non-Denial Denial.

You know the saying ?Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak
out and remove all doubt?? Well, NBC executives do not...

http://thesmallwave.com/TSW/Home/Entries/
2007/9/2_NBC_Admits_Greed_And_Stupidity%3A_Issues_A_Non-
Denial_Denial..html

[notgeorgeou]

I think this mischaracterizes George Ou

"You can tell because even guys like Paul Thurrott think so. What more do you
need? An pro-Apple/anti-NBC screed from George Ou? Because the horned
one's not sure he could handle that."

I don't think George Ou is anti-Apple. It's more that he's rabidly pro-
Microsoft. This unfortunately means that he's prepared to make false and
damaging allegations about Apple in areas where they're competing with
Microsoft -- vide his ignorant and demonstrably false comments about Apple
anti-aliasing -- but I think that's only in order to give Microsoft a leg-up not
because Ou has any particular animus against Apple.

[Macalope]

The Macalope mischaracterize? That's unpossible!

Actually, the horned one would contend that he's more anti-Apple than pro-Microsoft. He certainly didn't like the Zune, he's criticized MS a number of times and says he primarily uses Linux.

In the end, of course, he's more complicated than one might expect. No one can really be boiled down to such simple stereotypes (even Rob Enderle, although "getting quoted" is probably pretty close to his major motivation).

[Fake Mike]

there's also the simple fact...

...that the missing part of their "flexibility" is likely that high-demand shows like
BSG and Heroes, for example, would be $4.99 all on their own.