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It's about time...

I have a 160GB AppleTV, Samsung BD-3600 with Netflix, Blockbuster On-demand, Youtube, Pandora. I rented one movie from ATV/iTunes once just to test the concept. Yeah, it is expensive and I have not done it again. If they lower it to 0.99c, we will rent more from ATV. Blockbuster On-demand is also expensive. The best bang for the buck is the Netflix $8.99 subscription.
 
Umm, have you watched a show on nbc.com or abc.com lately? That's exactly what they do.

Nope I haven't, as I live in the UK where our public commercial broadcasting has been funded by advertising since it's inception.

Pay for content - No Advertising
Free content - Advertising

Simple really.
 
Just make subscription pricing and forget all this per episode junk. That's all I want!
 
It should be $.99 for SD and $1.29 for HD. I don't want to pay double for HD content. They shouldn't charge extra for it anyway.
 
I don't really mind the price, but I do have these issues:
-Better quality (at least DVD quality for SD & BluRay quality for HD)
-Entire episode; I find that some episodes & movies having missing scenes/parts of scenes
-If buying a whole season, include the special features included on the DVDs
-Maybe a rental/subscription model along w/ buying. Some episodes I might miss on TV, but I'd just want to watch it once. But some episodes I DO want to keep
-More closed captioning. My Dad's VERY hearing impaired & really needs closed captioning.
 
Forget pricing, improve content!

I would gladly pay current prices and spend more money if Apple had better content and sooner release dates. The iTunes library still sucks compared to Netflix, which is not saying a lot.
 
I don't know if anybody else picked up on this, so I apologise if I missed your comments, but theres a huge flaw with the idea of presuming the music industries fate would be the same as television.

With music, of course they were going to lose album sales if they started selling individual songs, because most people are only familiar with a few individual songs, but with TV shows people don't just buy a couple of episodes that they have seen before, they would be more inclined towards buying the rest of the show that they havn't seen. I wouldn't just buy an single disc of Battlestar on it's own. I'd buy a boxset.

I'm pretty sure that the execs realise this, they're not 'that' stupid. I think these articles tend to draw too many comparisons, and theres plenty of reasons for why the executives wouldn't want to decrease the prices. Not that I agree of course, I'd love for shows to be cheaper, I'd start buying them more then.
 
The only reason you have tv is because of the advertisers. The Neilson Families don't monitor after market shows that you can buy from places like itunes. The money is in them watching the shows on tv so the advertisers know where the eyeballs are.
So the after market, itunes, should be a discounted place because there are no Neilson Families to get the advertisers watching their bell curve.
 
I get about 90% of my TV shows from iTunes. So a price drop would very much be a welcome change.

1) Why?
2) How much do you spend a month?
3) Most of us here have never used iTunes for TV shows. As an iTunes TV(er?), what would you most like to see? Improved video quality? Lower prices? More content?
 
Sorry Apple, but I will never buy a TV show (or Movie either, for that matter) until two requirements are met:

- Prices are sliced (TV shows SHOULD be $.99, or at least $1.49, $1.99 doesn't seem justified - to me at least). I understand the network needs to be payed, but their are no direct production costs as it's all electronic. No reason as to why I have to pay MORE for a TV season on iTunes than on DVD

- DRM is COMPLETELY REMOVED, like they did with music. I can't even send the shows to my brother or roommates computer without dealing with that BS iTunes password and login information. I can easily do that with optical copy of the media. I actually bought songs from the iTMS this year, which I never did until they removed DRM.
 
For the most part, I don't want to own TV shows that I watch. I don't watch much of anything on TV anymore, but when I do, I expect to watch it, be entertained, and move on.

Here's where a Netflix-like subscription model works. I get Apple's idea about owning music. But owning TV shows? I don't watch them over and over again.
 
Per episode charges are as much of a laugh as paying a dollar per song with neither a hardcopy nor online backup. I don't remember the last time I used that joke of a 'store'..
 
So, I can watch them free live (or with a DVR). I can watch them free streaming on hulu or ABC.com with a few ads. I can have them stream instantly on Netflix or get DVDs for the ones that don't. And they think $.99 is going to be worth it at per episode pricing? :rolleyes:

Charging to television content at all is where the problem is.

Bingo! The only thing that will raise the use of TV content (and movies IMHO) on ITMS is the adding of a subscription service similar to Netflix without the physical DVD part.

I think it's $8.99/month for unlimited netflix streaming and a 1 DVD out at a time. $2/show is way over priced. 99c is still over priced when you look at what you can watch on Netflix for the $9.
 
TV Commercials?

TV episodes have to become cheaper.

They cost nothing on broadcast. I'd download episodes for a buck instead of watching live.

It does cost you nothing but what about all the TV commercials that have to pay to be transmitted during the show? I you download it, then they get nothing for advertisement. Ok you can save it and then skip the commercials, but they got paid to transmit it with ads.
 
1) Why?
2) How much do you spend a month?
3) Most of us here have never used iTunes for TV shows. As an iTunes TV(er?), what would you most like to see? Improved video quality? Lower prices? More content?

  1. I travel a lot, its simpler than a DVR and I don't have to deal with commercials.
  2. Usually not much more than most would spend on cable between 50 and 75 a month. It really depends on how many new episodes are out.
  3. To me the HD/SD combo is perfect the way it is. We could always use lower prices. And I wish that the networks where more consistent on getting the programs to Apple. Sometimes it can take days for new episodes to appear on iTunes.
 
I would like prices to drop. I would like prices of movies (rentals) to also come down some, too bad all the online rental prices seem to be about the same.
 
I'd like the Series Pass pricing reduced, for example, House Season 6 (HD), here in the UK anyway, is £48.99 or $78, way too steep in my opinion, £35 I could accept. I buy a lot of TV series off iTunes anyway, pricing is usually acceptable.
 
The only reason you have tv is because of the advertisers. The Neilson Families don't monitor after market shows that you can buy from places like itunes. The money is in them watching the shows on tv so the advertisers know where the eyeballs are.
So the after market, itunes, should be a discounted place because there are no Neilson Families to get the advertisers watching their bell curve.

Utter crap.

The reason we have TV is because of the BBC, the first national broadcaster whom, since inception has been publicly funded by UK citizens.

The advertising model started at least 20 years after the formation of the BBC.

The BBC is a paid for service that must supply content to it's customers, in this case the whole TV license paying public of the United Kingdom.

This also means it is obliged to provide niche services such as closed captions, regional programming and specialist interest as part of it's charter. Some of the very things the current US based model of commercial broadcasting will not address, or provide if there is no profit motive.

It also puts the onus on serving the consumers/users rather than what the corporations would prefer you to watch.

Plus there is the opportunity to then sell this content on the global market generating revenue, be it from physical media sales, free content with advertising revenue or digital content for paid download.

This additional revenue can support and be invested in improving content and providing niche markets with programming that would otherwise be unavailable.
 
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