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NBC Chief Slamming Apple
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Oct 30, 2007 03:11 AM
from the catch-more-flies-with-honey dept.
from the catch-more-flies-with-honey dept.
On the heels of the beta of NBC's and News Corp.'s less-than-killer Hulu music store, NBC's chief Jeff Zucker is speaking out and saying the darnedest things. First, news.com reports, with derision, that Zucker demanded a cut of Apple's iPod revenue. That'll sure happen. Next, AppleInsider caught Zucker urging colleagues to take a stand against Apple's iTunes, charging that the digital download service was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to set profitable rates for their content online.
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Hulu Launches With Few YouTube Killing Qualities 107 comments
Hulu.com, the online video venture from NBC Universal and News Corp., has launched a private beta program. Early reports suggest it's far from being a YouTube killer. "Although Hulu's parent companies have done a lot of things right with the service, the scheduling leaves something to be desired. For the time being, the site will only feature five weeks worth of content for any given show. From there, it's assumed that older content will get the boot in favor of newer episodes and movies. This isn't necessarily a deal breaker for us, but for a lot of viewers this will prevent the service from becoming with online video Shangri-La they'd imagined. Furthermore, with the lack of user-generated content, it falls short of the end-all be-all site for online video. Viewers are still going to go to YouTube and still click their ads -- but in terms of piracy a minor rebellion may have been quelled."
Firehose:NBC Chief, "Apple 'destroyed' music pricing by Anonymous Coward
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NBC's Zucker Hints At Return to iTunes 67 comments
Bad corporate blood led to the collapse of the NBC/Apple business relationship in the fall of last year. Now, via the Engadget news feed, comes word that things may be thawing out between the two. A for-pay article in the Financial Times had words from NBC Universal's COE Jeff Zucker, saying: "'We've said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple.' He then unexpectedly adds, 'We're great fans of Steve Jobs.' No telling what has caused the turnabout. Perhaps the writers strike gave both parties time to reflect on their mounting lost revenue." The site also notes that NBC signed a deal as part of the recent movie rental announcement, possibly contributing to the thaw. They link to a BusinessWeek article pointing out positive statements from Jobs reciprocating these 'feelings'.
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hehehe (Score:5, Funny)
Re:hehehe (Score:4, Funny)
Or motherzucker?
Hey Zucker, go $#!^ in your own hat. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, seriously. You want a cut of iPod revenues? Do you make hardware? Do you demand a cut of the manufacturers who produce DVD players? Do you demand a cut of the Internet carriers? Come on now. How about sticking to content creation and paying good writers to create quality content?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not that I'm saying he shouldn't shit in his hat... I'd glad shit in it myself...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Deal or no deal twice a week, the biggest loser, 500 versions of law and order. If they do quality content, they might lose their audience.
Re:Hey Zucker, go $#!^ in your own hat. (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with NBC is that they drive shows into the ground. They're doing it with Deal or No Deal and Law & Order. They did it with Dateline before.
You can only eat steak so many times...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hey Zucker, go $#!^ in your own hat. (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't understand how TV works. Some smart TV exec long ago noticed that viewers decide IN THIS ORDER (1) "I want to watch TV", (2) "What's on?" So because they operate in this order all you need is to have the show that sucks the least. They have already decided to watch something. it does not need to be good. To make money you want to spend the smallest amount of money and suck the least do that and you can get rich.
Re:Hey Zucker, go $#!^ in your own hat. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hey Zucker, go $#!^ in your own hat. (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh well NBC is pissed because their sales have plummeted since they left Itunes. The problem is the people most likely to buy music and TV shows online are those with extra cash and a large piece of those are Mac users. Talk about pissing off the wrong crowd.
Re:Hey Zucker, go $#!^ in your own hat. (Score:5, Insightful)
How dare they make money on something displaying content they don't produce!
In over a year of getting NBC via off-air digital, I just saw my second HD movie.
They were throwing large promo banners for another Universal movie right on top of the one I was watching. I'd planned to go see the advertised movie, but I won't now. They really seem to be trying to piss people off.
About 18 minutes an hour of ads, double what it was in the 60's. And they don't know why people are tuning out.
Try leaving feedback on the NBC website sometime. They want so much info it's obvious they plan to spam you or sell it to someone who will.
They're about as pathetic as the FEMA press conference with FEMA employees posing as reporters.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They were throwing large promo banners for another Universal movie right on top of the one I was watching.
Ok, this is going to be slightly off-topic, but WTF is the deal with these overlays they use now? It was one thing when they'd put a little semi-t
Re:Hey Zucker, go $#!^ in your own hat. (Score:5, Interesting)
Some cleanup is needed in the high-up of media companies, how can these asshats even remotely expect to run a profitable distribution system in the near future.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Give it to us, precious! We wants it!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Regarding "profit" I guess he can start his own 5 dollar per tune music store and he will be rich I tell you!! Everyone will buy his music!
All I want is almost free infinite
Re:Hey Zucker, go $#!^ in your own hat. (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, the media companies have invested absolutely zero money and effort into providing their content in a form desired by consumers. While I like the iPod, I'm not expecting to always want one, or willing to buy any media that will only play on an iPod. That has ruled me out of buying anything from iTunes (until the DRM free stuff which is now out). I've got used to the hassle of ripping CDs now, but it's not an ideal solution. This is entirely the media companies fault.
I'm happy for Apple to profit - the media companies need to look at their own actions.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"The difference with DVD's is that the content providers can charge what they want. They can charge according to their and the market's needs."
Ok...I'm confu
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What format that supports DRM do you propose? If you want DRM, I think Apple has the strings on that one. It's either iTunes or no DRM.
Re:Yeah, except iTunes != iPod (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:He doesn't create content (Score:4, Informative)
From Jeff Zucker's bio at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Zucker [wikipedia.org]):
"Chief Executive Officer of NBC
On December 15, 2005, Zucker was again promoted by NBC, to Chief Executive Officer of NBC Universal Television Group behind Robert Charles Wright, vice chairman of General Electric and chairman & CEO of NBC Universal. Zucker was responsible for all programming across the company's television properties, including network, news, cable, and Sports and Olympics. His responsibilities also include the company's studio operations and global distribution efforts [emphasis mine]. Zucker reports to Bob Wright."
I bet you drink a lot of Maalox in a job like that.
In the "old days" the FCC's "financial interest and syndication rules" (quick history [museum.tv]) made it unprofitable for the big-three networks to own the content-production side of the business as well. The rules prohibited the networks from selling "reruns" of programs they produced (e.g, The Johnny Carson Show) to local television stations, a practice called "program syndication." Since all the risk capital in program development is upfront, a program's profits are not made on its initial showing but in "reruns" to cable networks, local television stations, and overseas distributors. By prohibiting the networks from profiting in this aftermarket, the "fin-syn" rules made owning the production studios uneconomical.
Nowadays, anything goes. CBS created Viacom and sold it off to comply with the FCC. Now Viacom owns CBS. NBC has merged with Universal Studios, and Disney bought ABC/ESPN by first buying a multi-market TV station owner. Australian-owned Fox has interests in newspapers, movies, satellite TV, US local television stations in the US, and many more outlets I'm sure. What were once strict divisions between media production and distribution have long since fallen by the wayside. In large part these pro-business changes reflected the opinions of new FCC commissioners appointed by Republican administrations. They also represented a change in the structure of television from a world where three networks commanded 90% or more of the viewers to one where they fewer than half that number. (http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2007/10/16/cbs_network_scores_another_ratings_win/ [boston.com])
Happened before (Score:4, Funny)
media execs try to kill the Golden Goose, (Score:4, Insightful)
Still stuck in the past.. (Score:5, Insightful)
it's complete rhetoric, but I believe networks like NBC have lost their usefulness in light of real choice based network (ie internet).
The true face of media industry. (Score:5, Insightful)
You know you're doing something right (Score:5, Insightful)
As children, these folks were the ones who stood alone on the playground at recess, holding the ball, because for all intents and purposes, they believed the entire world belonged to them. And they haven't grown up since then. The only reason why they've gotten as far as they have in life is because their limitless greed and egotism is repeatedly mistaken for ambition and confidence. The sad truth is that they only have as much power as others are willing to concede to them, and so their existence is more a reflection of the inability of our society to stand up and refuse to reward such psychopathy.
a little late (Score:5, Insightful)
The simple fact is Apple stepped into what was in effect an empty playing field while everyone else was still arguing over lockers in the changing room.
Re:Far too late (Score:4, Informative)
1)Record companies seen this coming.
Unfortunately they didn't see it coming. They thought they owned all music and so any MP3 was illegal. There will be no online stores simply because they will have no legal product.
This is the exact mistake George Lucas made with the original Star Wars. It was never going to be released to the home video market. You could only see it in theaters. They wanted to do the Disney Bambi stunt. Release it every 7 years to a new generation of kids. The pirates showed them that was a mistake. The statute of limitations has run out, but I had my copy of Star Wars 4 years before it was released to the home market.
The record industry is in the same boat for the same reasons.
1 High price on the authorised format
2 Limited Distribution in authorized channels
3 Effecient peer to peer network (Sneakernet and Internet) with low duplication costs.
The music industry didn't learn from the mistakes of Lucas and Disney
To be fair to traditional media companies... (Score:5, Funny)
Apple isn't his problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Really worried about losing his stranglehold (Score:5, Interesting)
NBC is worried about following in their footsteps. While the bar for TV shows is a bit higher, its certainly not out of reach. For instance, how much would it really cost a group of independent people to make the next Seinfeld? Not a lot, esp. now that good video editing tools are pretty cheap(if not free in some cases). Look at how "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" started, the pilot episode cost them less than $100 to make. Imagine if they promoted that on iTunes instead of selling it to a network? They probably could have got enough money to continue to make more episodes and live comfortably. NBC sees its own irrelevance and is doing everything it can to try to stay relevant, but long term its just not going to happen.
Re:Really worried about losing his stranglehold (Score:5, Interesting)
Robert
The real reason the media corps hate Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is it? (Score:4, Funny)
"Destroyed the Music Business?" WTF??! OMG Ponies! (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple pays the record labels for every download they sell. If they're not paying them enough, the labels have the right to take their business elsewhere but (except for NBC) they don't, so by definition they're making enough money.
The key to understanding his complaint is his phrase "in terms of pricing". What that means is that the labels can no longer monopolistically control the price of recordings any more.
And I think this is a good thing, good for the fans, and good for the people who really deserve to benefit from it: the musicians.
I think such a loss of control is the reason the labels are so opposed to Internet radio: because everyone and his dog can run a streaming radio station from their home, Internet radio takes away from the big labels the ability to decide who the big stars are going to be. Payola just doesn't work anymore when fans have a choice of thousands of streaming music stations to listen to at every computer.
The result of this is that I've noticed artists who were first made popular at places like Radio Paradise [radioparadise.com] getting airplay on traditional broadcast stations. And I can't remember the last time I listened to a ClearChannel station.
Re:"Destroyed the Music Business?" WTF??! OMG Poni (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, in other words his statement reads: Competition undermines the ability of the media cartel to engage in price-fixing. Over the last 150 years, America's love of the free market has made America into the most powerful economy on earth. Now the media cartel wants to drag us into the 19th century, and up to now, our politicians are doing their best to help them for the most part.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm. I thought it was mostly FDR and WWII which achieved that.
Re:"Destroyed the Music Business?" WTF??! OMG Poni (Score:4, Insightful)
They haven't destroyed the music business (yet), but there's a lot of ambiguity about what's on those iPods. Less than 4% of the content was sold by iTunes, something like an average of 20 tracks per iPod were sold. We don't know how much of the rest was legally obtained or not. My sister builds her collection by borrowing CDs from the library.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In the early 80s I used to occasionally make mix tapes for friends overseas so they could hear what was new in the U.S. I do
Twisting in the wind (Score:3, Insightful)
An appropriate Halloween metaphor for the media middleman industry.
You media conglomerate networks and telecom provider companies don't seem to get it. We (the viewers) want you (the companies in control of the wires and the infrastructure) to simply deliver to us what we like. Without a hassle. That means that until I can get my Bill Maher every Friday night, until I can grab my Jon Stewart and Bear Grylls and Stephen Colbert and Ellen Degeneres and Charlie Rose and Bill Moyers and Alton Brown and Mike Rowe and Keith Olbermann, on demand, by paying something to you for it, I'll get what I want for free, via torrents or video blogs or other means.
As it stands right now, I would have to subscribe to a cable company's entire digital cable lineup to get all of these stations, and I'd be subsidizing Fox News, CNN, ABC, CBS, Home Shopping Network, Lifetime, Hallmark, and who knows what other garbage.
I'm not doing that anymore. I've nearly convinced my mom to drop her cable along with me. That's $55 something per month each, $110 * 12 = $1320 per year, we're paying for 100 ad-drenched channels, most of which we never watch anyway. Do you see how useless you've become in the internet age? Wake up and fix your problems, or you'll be gone in less than a decade.
Ah, (Score:4, Insightful)
I paid 99 cents for a comcast ppv NBC show (Score:5, Informative)
I got lazy last week and just paid the 99 cents to watch an episode of The Office that I missed on Comcast's "On Demand" service.
IT HAD COMMERCIAL INTERRUPTIONS
At each normal commercial point they showed a 30 second ad for some NBC show.
Never again. I was steaming.
Re:I paid 99 cents for a comcast ppv NBC show (Score:5, Funny)
Great marketing speak translator (Score:4, Funny)
grunka-lunka-dunkity-dahfitable,
we don't care if your service is profitable!
$1.99 per ep? (Score:3, Insightful)
Honestly, these hippies and their money, give it to me if you're having problems spending it.
Eat your own dogfood, Zucker! (Score:5, Insightful)
Zucker whines
but unfortunately (for him and his ilk), he's fighting against both the inevitability of technological change and the just rewards (poetic justice, karma, payback, what-goes-around-comes-around,
As an amateur calligrapher with family members who are performers, I can confidently assert that:
Let's see NBC sharing a cut of their profits with a health insurance fund for performers. Then maybe I'll start listening to anything he has to say about being on the receiving end of a revenue-sharing proposal. Maybe.
And a new character is born..... (Score:3, Funny)
[hip charismatic kid]: Hi, I'm a Mac....
[middle-aged, sorta nerdy guy]: And I'm a P.C......
[insane looking creature who appears to be made from a conglomeration of movie monster parts]: And I'm the Entertainment Industry.....GIVE ME YOUR WALLETS YOU THIEVING BASTARDS!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cut of iPod revenue... (Score:5, Insightful)
Likewise, NBC is not helping Apple sell iPods/iPhones with their content. Ask anyone who owns an iPod/iPhone; NONE will tell you that they got it to watch officially sanctioned NBC/big time media corporation content on their devices. Most of them can get their media through other means (and these means are more likely than not illegal). If anything, Apple is doing these companies a favor by presenting the media in a highly accessible/available/cheap format for the more conscientious consumer. If anything, Apple is helping them sell content that would otherwise be pirated.
Now, it can be argued that the conscientious are provided more incentive to buy an Apple media device with the availability of officially sanctioned content. But I highly doubt that the content would draw significant numbers to warrant Apple giving up revenue. I feel that having video playback capability in the media players is enough to draw customers, even without the availability of actual content, especially when content can be user generated.
Re:Content industry = criminal price fixing cartel (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that's not what he did. NBC's explained why they left iTunes and how they think the content sales model should be structured. Other companies are free to follow their lead or ignore it; most will probably sit on the side lines and watch how this plays out. If Apple wins they will stay put; if NBC builds a viable and profitable product they will copy it.
The key issues are:
1) How bad does Apple need the content to sell iPods? As a hardware company they seem to view the content as a tool to drive profitable hardware sales and want it to be as cheap as possible to lock people into their hardware. OTOH, they are not stupid and if they can raise prices without significantly impacting sales then probably would do so.
2) How bad does NBC need the iPods to drive content sales? Given they can distribute content in iPod compatible formats independent of Apple not being on iTunes doesn't seem to be that much of an issue; but that means they are at Apple's mercy for compatibility. Apple could "break" something in an iTunes upgrade that makes it impossible to load non-iTunes DRM content onto an iPod, just as they changed the way video out works so that devices need new electronics to still work with iPods (a strange move given how neat the Philip's DVD / iPod player combo is).
3) What level of pricing are consumers willing to pay? NBC could, for example, develop a tiered pricing model - free for ad laden content up to a premium price for an ad free version. In addition, they could do a bundle where the original purchaser of the DVD gets online content as well, such as additional scenes or an iPod ready version of the movie in an attempt to limit the value of used DVDs in the resale market.
In the end, it is not unusual this rift occurred - both sides want to maximize their slice of what the consumer wants to pay. So far Apple has done that better than the content providers; now that the market has matured the content providers will start flexing their muscle and trying to get a bigger slice of the pie.
Personally, I think we will see a resurgence of the subscription based model; with a slightly different look. Consider a content provider / MS / Blockbuster / Tivo alliance - MS produces a player OS (and hardware in conjunction with other manufacturers) with strong DRM; Blockbuster expands it's online offerings to include a subscription to d/l content as well as keeps the DVD by mail/ return to store get a new movie model, Tivo provides the set top box to play d/l content on the TV and the content providers provide content. Getting everyone to play nice will be a challenge but the pieces are already there.
Blockbuster already has the content via subscription model with their Blockbuster Online operation; TIVO has the pieces for d/l and storing content for TV viewing; and MS makes cell phone OS's so they are familiar with the loss leader hardware to sell services model.
The question is will Apple do this with the content providers or will someone else?
Re:Content industry = criminal price fixing cartel (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole idea of a subscription means you amortize the money you pay across the amount of content you use. Use lots of content, and you only pay a little bit per item. That sounds great when you first start out, because whoever offers the subscription has a huge library of stuff you've never seen before, so the idea of searching cheaply has an obvious appeal.
Thing is, people tend to re-use music and video. I can read a newspaper or magazine, throw it away, and never want to look at it again. If I hear a song I like, I want to hear it again later.
That's where the problem starts. When I build a library of items I want to use again, every item in that library competes with the others for my time and attention. If "really liking" a song means I want to hear it at least once a week, and I spend about 2 hours per day listening to music, I can only have about 350 songs in my "really like" playlist. Adding more songs means I'll hear less of the stuff I already "really like." The time each new item takes away from stuff already in my library has to be subtracted from the value of adding the song.
Eventually, the cost of adding another song balances the value of having it, at which point the song is basically worthless to me. Having a million songs to explore means I could spend a three years, twelve hours a day, doing nothing but listening to tracks I haven't heard yet, and never listening to anything that I already knew I liked. Very few people want to do that.
Once you start using content more than once, the idea of amortizing the cost over the number of plays starts to make sense. If I spend $0.99 for an iTunes track and play it 99 times, I've paid a penny per play, and the cost just keeps getting lower the more I play the thing.
So subscription models are good for people who want to explore a large body of stuff, and outright purchase is good for people who want to build a library of stuff they'll use frequently.