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.
Apple really shouldn't hold back its true feelings about the iTunes Store no longer having NBC's TV shows like this:
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. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.
"We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes.
Despite the bad news, that's probably the most refreshing press release the Macalope's read in a long time.
Apple may be laying out the worst case scenario there, but $4.99 an episode is insane. $109.78 for a 22-episode season? No thanks.
Not that the horned one is really downloading a lot of TV shows from iTunes anyway when his EyeTV kindly records them for free. When there are so many other options, trying to raise the price so dramatically certainly seems like an attempt to kill the channel (as in distribution channel, not television channel).
Like Universal, NBC is clearly happy to screw its customers in an attempt to screw Apple. Way to build the brand.
Coincidentally, a woodland gnome points out to the Macalope that NBC is partly owned by Universal's parent corporation. What are the odds?!
UPDATE: This piece (tip o' the antlers to Daring Fireball) reminded the Macalope that the way he got in to Heroes (it's a very good show, by the way, even if the season finale was a little bit of a letdown) was that the first episode was a free download from iTunes.
Are there just not good metrics for this stuff or are they that stupid?
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