Apple Sells 1 Million Videos in Under 20 Days

olddotter writes "Apple has sold over 1 million videos through iTunes since the release of the Video iPod service. Personally I am surprised by this success, it raises many questions. Will this encourage more people to put their video content on the iTunes store? Is there a vast market for cheaper stuff at reduced prices? Why am I willing to pay more for music than I would for video?"

Re:videos have sound!

[osssmkatz]

To clarify, music videos include a seperate AAC file with just the song, as well as the video. Perhaps Apple's "Watch your music" campaign motivated some people? --Sam

vintage videos

[rkhalloran]

somebody posted this [mp3newswire.net] last week about making old 50s shows available for cheap. Sounds promising to me as a way of preserving the early days of TV. Heck, I'd pay a buck for old Zachary creature features.

pay more for music

[frovingslosh]

Why am I willing to pay more for music than I would for video?

I guess pretty much for the same reason that you are willing to pay more for a movie sound track CD than for the DVD of the movie itself. The RIAA has kept the prices artifically high and you go along with it.

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've purchased videos and i'm in canada, so its not exclusive to the US, though some countries may be out of the loop. What store do you use?

Re:Front Row integration?

[Ravnsgaard]

According to Steve's demo: Yes, absolutely

Re:You're surprised?

[fiddlesticks]

>it has become a $300 million-a-year business

Go higher, and try between $1 and $3.3 Billion - worldwide.

Re:Front Row integration?

[Fahrvergnuugen]

Yes they do.

Check this out [apple.com].

Here's the demo page on apple's site: http://www.apple.com/imac/frontrow.html [apple.com]

Sales

[JonN]

Really, there is no downside with the way Apple has handled the beginning of a transition into video. It seems unlikely that anyone planning to purchase an iPod would say, "wait a minute, I get a bigger, much better screen, larger storage, and thinner iPod for the same money as the old iPod--no way, I don't want that." Even if you exclude video capability, the new iPod has other features alone which might have ticked up the numbers. So, its hardly a surprise that Apple is happy with the results. I hope Apple is able to announce, before Thanksgiving, some big deal with at least one studio, for more content (e.g. Warner Bros., Paramount, etc.) which will include real movies. That will be the kicker for outstanding sales of the video iPod for Christmas.

Re:Doesn't Seem Like Alot

[aDSF762]

$99,500 a minute ain't too shabby.

Re:Hot Damn

[SlightlyOldGuy]

My wife is a musician who self-produces her albums. She's now making more money through a handful of songs on Itunes than by selling her CDs. This great outlet is now (or should soon be) available to independant video producers. Watch out for the next Nick Park on iTMS.

Europe

[Hrothgar The Great]

I was on vacation in Europe this summer, and the people we were staying with had MTV on the television, and I am serious - maybe 80-90% of the ads were from a couple of different companies hawking mind bogglingly irritating ringtones. It was completely unbelievable. And it was always the SAME ONES over and over. Yikes.

Considering how much I DIDN'T want to buy any of them, the only conclusion I could come to was that I must be getting old.

Oh, and by the way, if you're in the US, like me, this is going to be how our TV is pretty soon too, since we're trying to play catch-up with just about every other country in the world in cell phone technology right now. Just you wait.

Re:Video iPods?

[SlightlyOldGuy]

Doesn't the DRM prevent playing these things on anything other than an iPod or iTunes?

Re:I don't think it will last

[ak_hepcat]

Apparantly, you can...

Tivo to vPod [slashdot.org]

Re:Doesn't Seem Like Alot

[TheRaven64]

To put that in perspective, iTMS and iPod accessories generated $265M in revenues (not profit) last year. To put it another way, this generated around 1% of iTMS's annual revenue over 20 days - at this rate, it will account for around 15% of total iTMS revenue over a year. Now, factor in the fact that they have almost no content, and even less content outside the USA, and you will see how big this is - it could easily be responsible for 50% or more of iTMS' revenue in a year or so if they add more content. The bandwidth costs are non-trivial for a TV show, but I would imagine that they are still able to make a significant profit.

Re:Front Row integration?

[1nhuman]

I've been running (somehow) Front Row on my pre iSight iMac G5 and Powerbook and it plays everything that Quicktime plays. Which in my case means DIVX, XVID, MPEG's etc. Even JPEG's and GIF's are displayed.

Re:Please educate me, iTunes video buyers

[TheBigBezona]

While I didn't get mine for the video capability, it turns out the screen is actually much more watchable than one would expect from the specs.

The image quality is quite high, and at arms length it's really not that much different than sitting across the room from a 20" or so screen.

While it won't be replacing my home theater any time soon, being able to watch a show or movie on a plane trip or whatever is a nice bonus.

Sure, there are better dedicated video players, but it's an Apples and oranges comparison. The iPod is still a music player primarily, with photo ability and video as nice bonuses. If video is what you see as a primary use for a device, look elsewhere, but for occasional viewing, it's more than adequate.

Re:Great!

[Ravadill]

The Australian iTunes "Videos" section is a joke, it is a few music film clips and some old Pixar shorts, no TV Eps at all, and a severely cut back amount of other videos.

I want to KILL AOL/TW

[Anonymous Coward]

for not capitilizating their assets. Open (the latest version of) Winamp [winamp.com]. Open Open Media Library, click on "Winamp Video". You see 10000+ VCR quality music videos (1750 artists, top names). The same thing that APPLE is sucessfully selling at $2 a pop, AOL/TW has been giving away on Winamp for 5 years, except that Apple has a fraction of the # of videos.

If AOL/TW bothered to figure out how to make money, they would (at least) team with Apple to SELL this content (currently, they're only making a token effort to make money by showing an ad before playing videos..which is annoying and ineffective). If they were very wise, they'd turn around an Itunes like client and partner with Microsoft, Sony and other Apple competitors and CRUSH them.

I can't stand stupidity.
[rant done]

Re:2.5"? eew.

[solive1]

Sure, it doesn't have the storage space than an ipod does, but it costs half as much than an ipod, and the screen is *much* larger (4.3" 16:9 widescreen).

Half as much? The 30GB video iPod is $300, and the PSP is $250. How is that half?

The 60GB video iPod is $400. PSP is still $250. Again, not half.

Add a 1GB card for the PSP for approximately $100, and the PSP is more expensive than the 30 GB iPod and has 1/30 of the storage capacity. All of that for a bigger screen? Oh but you can buy the UMDs for $20 - 40. That's cost-effective.

I have a PSP, but I have it for games (which aren't much to talk about either, but I may get the GTA soon).

Re:More?

[mugginns]

Downloading tv shows is illegal ?

Re:So give us a song title...

[SlightlyOldGuy]

Well, OK then...
Her name's Cathi Walkup and she sings Jazz. Check out "Hang Up And Drive"

Looks good on TV?

[SPYvSPY]

It probably is passable on an SDTV, but it looks absolutely awful on my 42" HD plasma. I know, I know--duh! But, seriously, iPod video is very close to unwatchable on a nice TV.

Re:Front Row integration?

[martinX]

If you've hacked FrontRow to play on your other Macs, don't d/l the 10.4.3 update that came out today. It breaks the hacked frontrow. See http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/ [xlr8yourmac.com] for details.

Re:pay more for music

[Anonymous Coward]

> What does "artificially high" mean?

That they were caught price-fixing. Not to mention other nastiness like payola.

Care to revise that economics lecture now? :)

Top 15 iTtunes Videos sold...

[dantheman82]

I've read that a number of people wanted to know the top sellers on iTunes. Well, here are the top 15:

1. Music Video - Michael Jackson - Thriller
2. TV Show - ...And Found - Lost
3. Movie - For the Birds - Pixar
4. Music Video - Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice
5. TV Show - Man of Science, Man of Faith (Premiere) - Lost
6. TV Show - They Asked Me Why I Believe in You - Desparate Housewives
7. Music Video - Kanye West - Gold Digger
8. Movie - Boundin' - Pixar
9. Movie - Geri's Game - Pixar
10. TV Show - Orientation - Lost
11. TV Show - Everybody Hates Hugo - Lost
12. TV Show - Adrift - Lost
13. Music Video - Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz
14. TV Show - Malum - Night Stalker
15. Music Video - La Tortura - Shakira & Alejandro Sanz

For those really interested, you can see the Top 100 Videos (requires iTunes) [apple.com].

Re:Europe

[Upphew]

Speaking of Crazy Frog... http://www.yle.fi/top40/albumit.shtml [www.yle.fi] Thats Finnish Top 40 Album list and look what is at 11th place... and been on the list for 14 veeks!

Irritating ringtones

[ApolloCreed]

maybe 80-90% of the ads were from a couple of different companies hawking mind bogglingly irritating ringtones.

Crazy Frog [wikipedia.org] is the marketing title of a ring tone based on The Annoying Thing...