Apple Pressuring TV Networks to Halve iTunes Episode Pricing?

[richman555]

I have purchased every season of The Office in HD so I have spent a mint thus far. I also bought season passes for a few other TV shows. I keep it all backed up on an external 2TB hard drive. Anyhow, I welcome a price change, $65 for a single season is way too much for television. I do like having no commercials and typical half hour episodes are much shorter.

 

[BoulderBum]

You know "Everyone" is an awfully large group of music consumers. Even with the convenience and ready availability of iTunes, etc, CDs still sell quite well. The Beatles just made a TON of money with nary a song on iTunes, Amazon, etc.

I agree that the music industry had to embrace digital distribution. I agree that the video-side also needs to fully embrace digital distribution. But both are embracing it... the latter simply being later to the party because their opportunity to party only really arrived several years later.

Just about every great TV Show currently being broadcast in first run is available commercial free via Itunes now. The beef for many seems to be in thinking that the commercial free price is too high. I feel that way too, but not such that I think "Everyone" should decide to just STEAL the show until the price is set at an (ambiguously, eye-of-the-beholder) acceptable level. All those people that put their creative efforts into creating those shows out of thin air deserve to be paid for the good work that they do. If there are no commercials (to pay them), and virtually no viewer fees paid for their creations, what do you think will happen to their ongoing efforts?

iTunes is now the largest music distributor on earth. "Everyone" is hyperbole, but the point is that digital distribution is the way everything is headed.

I agree that folks shouldn't steal shows, but I'd argue they will if they aren't left with a good legal alternative. It's not so much about pricing as it is about availability and features. It isn't true that "every great show" is on iTunes. I can't download older seasons of the Simpsons on iTunes, but I can certainly find them on DVD at Best Buy, or on torrents if I used BitTorrent or something similar (I don't).

I also can't find more modern shows like G4's interesting-souding "American Ninja Warrior" or even big-name shows like "American Idol" and "Saturday Night Live".

One of the music industry's mistakes, in my view, was waiting too long to fully warm to the idea of iTunes distribution, resulting in the widespread growth of illegal free alternatives.

I hope the video industry is wiser in this regard and not make the mistake of, as the OP says, "resisting the move" to iTunes.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

iTunes is now the largest music distributor on earth. "Everyone" is hyperbole, but the point is that digital distribution is the way everything is headed.

I agree that folks shouldn't steal shows, but I'd argue they will if they aren't left with a good legal alternative. It's not so much about pricing as it is about availability and features. It isn't true that "every great show" is on iTunes. I can't download older seasons of the Simpsons on iTunes, but I can certainly find them on DVD at Best Buy, or on torrents if I used BitTorrent or something similar (I don't).

I also can't find more modern shows like G4's interesting-souding "American Ninja Warrior" or even big-name shows like "American Idol" and "Saturday Night Live".

One of the music industry's mistakes, in my view, was waiting too long to fully warm to the idea of iTunes distribution, resulting in the widespread growth of illegal free alternatives.

I hope the video industry is wiser in this regard and not make the mistake of, as the OP says, "resisting the move" to iTunes.

Pirate logic seems to know no bounds. Let's clarify a key fact. "Widespread growth of illegal free alternatives" was a massive problem all the way back into the 1990's. The music industry couldn't start embracing iTunes as the legal pay alternative until the iTunes Store was actually launched... in 2003.

Any argument that goes, "I agree people should not steal (anything), but they will if they aren't left with a good legal alternative" is just a Pirate-logic excuse. Your version appears to lean to the "if it's too hard to find legally, then I'm (er, "people" are) justified in stealing it".

So does that apply to everything? It's too hard to find the exact car that I want so I'll just steal this near approximation. It's too hard to find the exact house that I want, so I'll steal this near one. It's too hard to find the exact food that I want, so I'll steal this food. It's too hard to find the exact clothing I want, so I'll steal...

Unlike my examples, it is easier to steal digital things via the internet... and the odds of prosecution are relatively low... and "everybody does it"... etc... but none of that makes it any more right. Any more than "movie industry fat cats driving porsches make too much money already"... or "I already paid for this movie when I watched it at the theater"... or "I'm just a poor student and can't afford it" (BUT "I'm hoping to get a job in the entertainment industry when I graduate"), etc. are not excuses.

If a company doesn't want to sell its movie/show/music, it is their right: it is THEIR show. Stealing it is still wrong. If your woman doesn't want to sleep with me but I take her anyway, there is no justification for me in "she didn't leave me with a good, legal alternative."

I'll agree that the scope of shows on iTunes could be larger- much larger (and wish it was), but the decision to pirate should not be "if it ain't on iTunes, I'm STEALing it", but more of a "rather than being a THIEF, I'll look around and try to buy what I want through some other source or means". If you know the older episodes of Simpsons are at Best Buy, go BUY them there. I'm pretty sure that the networks will offer streams of shows like Saturday Night Live on their own sites. I don't know about a show like "American Ninja Warrior". Have you tried contacting G4 about where you could BUY copies of it? Or have you just decided to STEAL it because it is NOT available on iTunes?

 

[SimonMW]

$65 for a single season is way too much for television.

You should try living in the UK or the rest of Europe. We have to pay the same price for the SD series as you do for the HD one! 24 season 8 for example costs £34 UK Pounds in SD. We don't even have the option to get it in HD!

 

[CWallace]

How is (Apple) considered greedy when they are trying to lower the price?

Because the idea is to make the content cheaper to drive more sales of tvs, iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads/iSlates/iTablets. Apple makes their money on the hardware the content plays on, not the content itself.

Hulu is owned by NBC Universal. We all know about them.

It's said to be Comcast, which is purchasing NBC, who is said to be behind the idea of charging for "popular" content on Hulu, even though they said during their negotiations to take over NBC that they would not do so.

 

[BoulderBum]

Pirate logic seems to know no bounds. Let's clarify a key fact. "Widespread growth of illegal free alternatives" was a massive problem all the way back into the 1990's. The music industry couldn't start embracing iTunes as the legal pay alternative until the iTunes Store was actually launched... in 2003.

I think you have a valid point about the music industry not having an iTunes store to put their content on till 2003 (though Napster was created in 1999 (though it didn't pick up steam till the early 2000's), but I'd argue that if there existed a good legal alternative early in the process, you wouldn't see as much of a proliferation of illegal file trading.

That said, surely there's a valid question to ask in the early days of iTunes which is: if a record label didn't have their songs on iTunes and you preferred digital downloads, where are you going to get them? I recall back in the day liking some European techno song that wasn't on iTunes, and if I wanted it, the only way to get it was via Amazon.com which let you buy an imported album for $30! In that situation, I downloaded the song from Kazaa!

Now it seems like virtually every song imaginable is on iTunes which are available on high quality files with no DRM! There's no excuse to steal music anymore.

For TV shows and movies, however, things need to improve. TV show selection isn't super comprehensive and I think it would be awesome to have a subscription service. For movies, the purchase experience is okay for almost all new movies, but I wish there were a better selection of good classics (Goonies, Star Wars, Neverending Story, etc.), and the rental policy is silly (specifically the delay in availability vs. physical rentals and the 24-hour expiration period after starting a movie).

Even Apple cites such restrictions as one of the roadblocks to broader adoption of their Apple TV product!

I'm not surprised, then, that some people resort to torrents. I don't personally use them; in fact I've managed to buy $1000+ of iTunes video in the past couple of years (I watch a lot of TV/movies), but if you offer a shoddy annoyingly restricted product when there's an easily accessible free illegal alternative, it's no surprise that so many users rip off the industries' work!

The proper industry approach, in my opinion, is not to sue individuals into oblivion and put an anti-piracy warning video (you know the one) at the beginning of every legal DVD, but to quickly respond to consumers' digital wants and come up with a good legal model.

That's why it's frustrating to continue to read stories about how the TV industry, for example, resists the move to iTunes because they're afraid of the same impact to profits the music industry faced. Rest assured, if they drag their feet too much, the industry certainly will see the same fate. The longer they resist the move to good digital (read: iTunes), the more torrent pirates are going to proliferate.

 

[SimonMW]

Because the idea is to make the content cheaper to drive more sales of tvs, iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads/iSlates/iTablets. Apple makes their money on the hardware the content plays on, not the content itself.

That's not greed, but responsible business practise. They are a company. They exist to make a profit so that they can keep paying their employees, and also take on more. You do understand that?

 

[charlituna]

That said, surely there's a valid question to ask in the early days of iTunes which is: if a record label didn't have their songs on iTunes and you preferred digital downloads, where are you going to get them? I recall back in the day liking some European techno song that wasn't on iTunes, and if I wanted it, the only way to get it was via Amazon.com which let you buy an imported album for $30! In that situation, I downloaded the song from Kazaa!

Ah yes, the great pirate excuse of 'but it's not available the way I want it, so that makes it okay to steal it'.

Yes folks did things like you describe but no excuse makes it okay. Including saying that you weren't going to buy it so it's not like anyone lost any money (try that one on the artist that needs to sell 10k copies to pay back his advance to a record label)

Even Apple cites such restrictions as one of the roadblocks to broader adoption of their Apple TV product!

And it likely is. However Apple is not the blame in the game. It is the studios and the networks, who care more about making it easier for folks to steal and pass around freebies than they do about some cheesy AppleTV thing (shocking I know).

The proper industry approach, in my opinion, is not to sue individuals into oblivion and put an anti-piracy warning video (you know the one) at the beginning of every legal DVD, but to quickly respond to consumers' digital wants and come up with a good legal model.

or why not the even better. Do both.

I will agree that education rather than suing etc for the casual downloader is better. Some of these kids just don't understand the big picture. they figure if it's out there it must be okay.

But the uploaders and the heavy downloaders, sue away. Fine them, put them in community service, take away their Internet (or at least cap the hell out of it). These folks know they are breaking the law. If they claim they don't, give them one warning and then hit them with the strong stuff if you wish.

Same for these torrent sites, sorry but the excuse of "we aren't posting the real files" is lame. PirateBay knows that they were doing wrong by allowing all those movie and tv torrents on their site. And yet the site still exists on another server (and I believe it went from .com to .org). They can claim that the movies are all crappy cams but those are still illegal. If the studios could send a cease and desist and it would actually do something, they would feel like the law actually cares about the losses such things cause them. And then they might actually embrace existing systems of legal downloading instead of fearing them as just a tool to make the illegal ones easier by giving them cleaning materials to pass around.