NBCU Madness

Whoa. Ego will cause some really wacky results. As has been widely written about, NBCU is pulling its shows off iTunes at the end of the contract. Apple, since it wasn’t going to be able to offer “seasons passes” anyway, and probably to stick it to NBCU a little decided to just go ahead and pull the shows from NBCU (all the NBC content plus other shows like Battlestar Gallactica) at the start of the new season.

Today it was announced that NBCU has done a deal with Amazon to make the shows available via Amazon Unbox. The price? $1.99 — NOT the $4.99 NBCU was allegedly trying to stick to Apple iTunes customers. Additionally, there’s a 30% discount for the season passes. For a brief moment in time, the shows live in both places and it’s easy to do the comparitive pricing. Individual episodes are $1.99 on both services, but the season pass on iTunes for Heroes Season 1 is $42.99, and via Amazon Unbox it’s only $31.99. It looks like a really good deal on price.

But there are downsides. First, the Unbox content only works with Windows and with Tivo. Mac video fanboys, you’re outta luck. Second, if you’re without a Tivo, you’re locked into using the “Unbox Player”. Translation, good luck getting that on your Apple TV, iPod or iPhone.

I always thought the season pass pricing on iTunes was ridiculous. It’s definitely better on Amazon, but the downside is the media isn’t really yours to do whatever you want with. You’re locked into certain ways of watching it. In fairness, due to DRM protection this was also mostly true with iTunes but at least I could buy content and get it right on my iPhone, and at least Steve J. is striving to end all DRM.

The $31.99 on unbox is at least cheaper than the $38.99 I can buy the actual boxed set of DVDs with actor and director commentary, fancy booklets, etc. from Amazon for. Apple’s season pass is more than the DVDs!

NBCU won’t sell as many shows on Amazon. Period. And when it comes crawling back to the gang in Cupertino and is back on iTunes, it will be with the same pricing as Amazon.

But here’s the thing, NBC probably generates more revenue from the broadcast advertising on its worst rated show than it makes with a years worth of sales on iTunes. Bottom line is right now this is just fun stuff to write about. The real world does not yet care.

(originally posted on TVbytheNumbers.com)

Seidman vs. Gorman TVbytheNumbers-style

TVbytheNumbers.com is still in shambles, but you can give it a look at www.tvbythenumbers.com/wp .But man cannot live by charts and numbers alone, so we're toying around with a couple of ideas to be more entertaining. Here's one...

OVER/UNDER

First question. Over or under ONE YEAR before NBCU shows are back on Apple's iTunes?

Robert: UNDER! NBC Universal has a problem. The way the it is set up I believe they will ONLY be able to sell well digitally if someone actually wants to watch it on the iPod. Otherwise, they'll go to NBC's site looking to see where they can buy Heroes and one of two things will happen:

1. $4.99? WTF!?

2. Even if it's $1.99 - HEY! they archive all the shows here during the season! I'll just watch it FOR FREE (there are ads, but only a few with what any of them are currently doing. It adds about 2 minutes instead of 20 you'd see on TV). Under, definitely under.

Bill: OVER! You're insane to think that the executives making these decisions at NBCU are sane, rational people trying to figure out how to make the most money and act in their own self-interests.. It's all about ego, and they can't handle that Steve Jobs is so, so fabulous and they're so, so not. Unless GE & Vivendi fire the dopes at NBCU who made this choice, I'm sticking with OVER.

Next question: Over/Under ONE HUNDRED TIMES that Les Moonves says "Only 45% of DVR users zap through the commercials" during the 2007-2008 season?

Robert: This is a ridiculous question. And a ridiculous statistic that's only true if you squint and ignore the actual data. I'd be prone to go over, even at ONE THOUSAND TIMES. More and more people will be moving to DVR usage and more and more advertisers will be upset about it. Moonves will constantly and consistently try to soothe them while still getting their greenbacks. OVER

Bill: Ahh, the pain and agony of having to agree with you. OVER. I have nothing else to add.

Next Question: Over/Under TEN: Number of this season's new shows that make it to next year's lineup?

Robert: If you include the CW in this mix, which we must because we here at TVbytheNumbers are a very inclusive bunch there are FORTY SIX new shows. I don't want to go over though because I think the number is exactly 10. So I'm going to push and say 10

Bill: The game is OVER/UNDER! We'll have to start changing these questions (e.g. 10.5) to force you into being a man and growing some stones. It's UNDER, it will be around 8 or 9 shows. But this is a dumb question to be asking now because Fox is holding back all their good stuff until January. I can't WAIT for The Sarah Connor Chronicles! Not to mention my favorites 24 and American Idol. No wait, I don't actually like either of those shows, I might give the Return of Jezebel James a try though. UNDER!

Robert: You know you can't wait for ABC's Cavemen! But when it comes to ABC I'm all about seeing my boy Mark Cuban winning Dancing with the Stars and watching Denny Crane (Boston Legal).

I don't know that I'll watch ANY new show. I may even bail on 24, it sucked last year. They say it will be better this year, with a female president. Fortunately I don't have to worry about that until next year. I'm pretty set in my ways.

Bill: You will watch the Sarah Connor Chronicles and you know you're going to watch the Bionic Woman AT LEAST once.

Robert: I'm as likely to watch the Bionic Woman as I am to watch 20/20, which is never. I didn't like it in the ‘70's, I won't like it in '07.

Bill: Admit it, it's already on your Tivo...

Next Question..(p.s. Zap2it has good full coverage of all the lineups).

Over/Under: Seven Weeks that Mark Cuban Lasts on "Dancing with the Stars"?

Robert: OVER, people are crazy if they don't think Cubes is advancing to the finals. I'd say he's going to win at all except for two words: Jane Seymour. C'mon, how am I going to bet against Jayne Seymour? But Mark will crush Marie Osmond and Scary Spice. You just wait!

Bill: Why do you make me suffer through your man-love for Cuban? Are you going to send him "good luck" flowers too? Cuban won't fare any better here than he did with the Benefactor (6 weeks!) UNDER, under, under, definitely under.

Robert: You're insane, but that's a great idea about the flowers! That's it for this week boys and girls...

(this is a complete mockup and may not accuately reflect the opinions of either of us, though that will always be true! The idea is also completely a ripoff of Tony Kornheiser's and Michael Wilbon's fine work on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption).

Eight Years Later and I Can’t Buy Entourage over the Internet

On the 8th anniversary of the broadcast.com IPO, I can’t help but wondering, what is HBO thinking about? You can’t even buy a four pack of Entourage episodes on iTunes for $8.00. I believe the $1.99 pricing would work out for HBO, it just needs to price stuff where if you subscribe to more than 2 things, it’d be a better deal just subscribing to HBO. I know, HBO like all the Time Warner schmoes on the music business side that came before it are worried about cannibalization. But there are a few ways around worrying about cannibalizing the HBO subscription service and the DVDs. Update: 7:35am, according to Cuban, it's the 9th anniversary of the IPO and the 8th anniversary of closing the broadcast.com deal, a special day for Mr. Cuban no matter how you look at it!

Does HBO think in 10 years the fate of the DVD is going to be any better than the CD? The DVDs purpose in life at that point will be very cheap media you can cram a lot of stuff on. Otherwise most people will be buying their content digitally already. And since that’s the way content will be sold anyway, why not get in ahead of the curve for a change? Otherwise you just encourage the countless sites up and available on the Internet aimed at providing immediate (and free) access to Entourage, the Sopranos, John in Cincinnati. I can understand not wanting to deal with Apple and although I think it’s dumb to fight that trend, I think Time Warner has a chance to sell its HBO content via its AOL arm. None of that synergy stuff seems to be playing out and it rankles me.

You don’t even have to do this in a way that cannibalizes the mothership or the DVDs. First, make it something that would be high quality on the iPod or iPhone but not so great on the TV. Or make the video high quality anyway – it’s not like iTunes includes any of the director’s or actor’s commentary tracks. There will still be a reason to buy the DVDs until all the content providers have thrown in the towel and realize digital distribution is going to win and they have to even include the good stuff digitally. For now though, that is a ways off.

I don’t know if there’s a penalty for HBO and others not being first movers here. It seems like the penalty is that people who might otherwise buy it wind up stealing it because it’s the fastest way to go. I have to be honest, I pay for HBO and various DVRs and record Entourage. I still find downloading the free torrent is faster than converting the huge file on my DVR into a format for my iPhone (mp4 or m4v) So, I’d already be willing to pay HBO or Comcast a small extra fee for access to “optimized for iPhone/iPod” files of shows I have already paid for in high definition.

The question for me is does HBO think about this at all and decide it’s not right for them or are they just not even thinking about it? A real decision not to do it I couldn’t find fault with, but if HBO isn’t even thinking about it, that’s another story.

I understand as well that the various producers of content may have different deals in terms of digital distribution and I think HBO not necessarily owning those rights right now isn’t a big deal if that’s the case. But I think such things will be a fairly huge deal in the 5-10 year time range.

Some have suggested via the comments under Cuban’s blog entry that perhaps Cubes has broadcast.com II up his sleeves. I hope so, but I think his focus is on owning sports franchises now and judging from the content I can download via hd.net, Cuban has become a content owner now and doesn’t want to cannibalize his content either. The only thing available for streaming/download from hd.net is 2 hours of Dan Rather content that is decidedly NOT in high definition. It’s good enough to look at and watch, but if my whole brand was based on high definition, I don’t know if I’d release much lower than HD quality content to the internet, even in consideration of bandwidth constraints. The file wasn’t so big that even doubling the file size and breaking it up into 2 pieces would’ve curtailed my desire to download it. My only point with this is that unless Cuban is deliberately trying to look “backwards compatible” with what’s available on HD.Net, he’s not looking to do “Broadcast II, and this time we mean it!”

The latest Dan Rather episode (from July 10th) is available for streaming via the Google Video player, and the production value isn’t nearly as good as some shorter stuff, like “Will it Blend: iPhone" via YouTube.

Another Update: 7:40a: In the credit where credit is due, much as this pains me, credit goes to Major League Baseball (MLB!). For $4.99 via iTunes I was able to buy all the coverage of the All Star Week festivities here in San Francisco (the rookie game, celebrity softball game, the Home Run Derby and the All Star Game itself). I thought it was a good value so I downloaded it. I was disappointed (come on, you knew I would be disappointed with something!)it was in 4:3 format instead of 16:9 widescreen, but it's optimized for the iPod, not my big screen. Still a good value for $4.99

Steve Jobs’ and Apple's Four Keys to Total World Domination

Step 1: Launch the best portable music player ever designed that works with the best software ever designed for managing the experience and get millions of iPods into the world and hundreds of millions of copies of iTunes installed World Wide.

Report Card: A+

Step 2: Create a buzz around a revolutionary new phone which actually probably isn’t the best cell phone in the world, but make people want it anyway by being the best iPod ever.

Based on the reviews here, here, here and here the early report card is: A+ (when you consider the phone isn’t available and all these guys tried to find the reasons not to like it, and they had many…and still loved it anyway).

Step 3: Launch more affordable stand alone iPod that has all the features of the iPhone except the phone itself (think bigger touch screen and cool as heck WiFi appliance)

Report Card: TBD

Step 4: Turn AppleTV (Steve’s Little Hobby™) into a full-fledged media server (as opposed to the basic media extender it currently is) with full features (DVR, pay per view/internet download directly from the tv, full streaming capabilities not just at home, but remotely). The goal of this box should be that it’s mostly transparent to the people using it. If they want to watch something on their big screen, it works, if they want to watch in their bedroom, it works, if they want to watch on their office computer, it works and of course if they want to watch on their iPod or iPhone, it works.

Report Card: TBD
--

Time is an important dimension here, but total world domination is worth the effort as far as Apple and Steve Jobs are concerned. They’ll have to keep stirring the pot, and I believe that Apple will make the concept of “liberating your media, so it’s really yours to do what you please with” something that everyone wants. But if Marketing is the metric, and past performance is any indicator…A+ Keep doing that for the next 5-15 years and…total world domination. And really, given its history, Apple would be happy to only own 80-90% of the “liberated media market”.

My only ding on Apple at all with regard to any of this is that if they sold iPods with big hard drives preloaded with 100 hours of video content, more people would understand the concept of portable media sooner, but they can wait 1-3 years on this probably without it impacting the quest for dominance.