When I try to watch TV these days, I last about 10 minutes before I hit the Power button and resume Web surfing. It’s the advertisements that really get to me—the way they crank up their sound levels above normal volume so people are effectively shouting at you to buy their body spray, fitness machines, SUVs, etc. So it delights me when, around this time of year, my very generous bosses Jason Snell and Phil Michaels hand out iTunes gift cards to the staff. When I got home the other day I excitedly redeemed the gift cards and thought to myself, “Finally, I can catch up on all those new episodes of The Office I missed—commercial free!”
Color me disappointed when I realized The Office was nowhere to be found. And then I remembered all the reports that surfaced the past few months about NBC not renewing its iTunes contract. I’d skimmed those headlines and shrugged, since I’m neither a regular iTunes customer nor a big NBC fan. But I do love The Office, and now that I’m affected by the consequences, I’m pretty darn irritated.
Unsurprisingly, both sides—NBC and Apple—are telling different stories as to who’s to blame. But from my understanding, the bottom line was that NBC was displeased with its lack of control over prices for its programs. To which my response is—what the hell is the problem, NBC? Is $1.99 per episode for shows people can watch for free on TV really not enough? Apple has always been known for keeping things simple, and I’m glad the company stood its ground when it came to keeping uniform prices.
Apple will most certainly take a hit from this move, since NBC shows such as Heroes and The Office were among the most downloaded. And NBC will suffer, too. Heck, The Office could have been canceled had iTunes not boosted the show’s ratings. By far this is, in my opinion, a stupider decision for NBC to have made. Why be stubborn and end a deal with a company (i.e., Apple) that increased exposure and earned more money for your programs? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
So instead of buying the iTunes season pass for The Office, I’ve been trying to watch new episodes streaming for free at nbc.com. But there’s one catch: the site interrupts the show every few minutes to play the same two thirty-second video advertisements. This is almost as annoying as commercial breaks on TV: the sheer monotony of being interrupted with the exact same ads over and over can get pretty aggravating. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
I guess I could start downloading episodes of Lost…
Yup, that makes two of us. I absolutely love The Office and House, only shows I hate to miss. I'm sure there are many of us though, NBC has to come back eventually.
Me? EyeTV, Quicktime Pro, and MPEG Streamclip. A modest amount of time and effort will produce a video free of commercials and viewable on an iPod or iPhone.
One word. TiVo.
Another word: P2P. If they decided to screw up with the customers screw them back.
Another two words: usenet ; bittorrent
Why be stubborn and end a deal with a company (i.e., Apple) that increased exposure and earned more money for your programs? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
Or, they've come to the realization that NBC and iTunes are in the same business: content distribution. And they don't want to hand business to a direct competitor if they don't have to, because it might compromise their power in the future.
Of course if they want to work with iPods, then they either have to go no-DRM, or work with iTunes.
Some of these shows can be watched on Hulu.com or with no strings attached on openhulu.com.
Hoping there is a TiVo under the Christmas tree this year just for this reason. Hope it works as advertised.
p2p ftw
Or even simpler...all these shows have torrents and can be downloaded minutes after broadcast. I would buy, but if NBC isn't selling on iTunes...
I prefer free with commercials. It works for me and it's free.
No, stealing is not the answer, it just adds fuel to the DRM machine.
These companies need to learn that they are not losing money due to piracy, they are losing money due to people not buying. And yes, there is a difference.
Brian, and everyone else like him, needs to contact NBC and tell them that they are losing customers and revenue due to their poor business models and overall stupidity.
I couldn't agree with you more about the commercials.
We haven't TV in over four years and have really caught up on a lot of reading. Frankly said, why would I pay $50 a month for loud and mostly dumbed-down commercial breaks every 6 to 10mn? I can download episodes from iTunes or even rent DVDs for less annoyance.
The whole TV industry has to rethink its strategy if it wants to survive. It might sound cool to have 999 channels but when the content is slim, who cares.
I will have TV again one day, but only when I can chose which channels I want to watch and pay for. Until then, I'm not wasting money on garbage.
Great post.
As far as I can tell, I think this is very much tied up with the current writers' strike (which has implications for the studios' negotiations with other unions). Under the previous collective bargaining agreement, writers were paid for downloaded programs, like iTunes', at the DVD rate. Even though it wasn't much, it was something that cut into the studios' share. However, when they stream video on the internet, like Hulu.com, they pay nothing to the writers, because they classify it as "promotional," even though they may get paid by advertisers. So the way I see it, the studios want to import the traditional tv's ad-supported revenue model to the internet, but without traditional tv's residuals model; and, they would rather people just stream content, because they want to maintain their DVD sales. That's my opinion, anyway.