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September 27, 2006

itunes_store

MLB is going…going…gone from iTunes podcasts

Posted Sep. 27, ’06, 9:22 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | iTunes » iTunes Store

MLB LogoLooks like Major League Baseball is ready to play a little hardball. MLB has removed its content from the iTunes Store, specifically game clips in the podcasting section. The report came from the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), which has said that the chief dispute was that Apple was uncooperative about promotion.

MLB wanted greater control over how its media was promoted, a request which Apple refused. Reportedly, the league was upset that ads for its content was put up squarely next to ads for individual baseball podcasts.

Oh no, democratization! Heaven forbid. Perhaps they didn’t understand the idea of “podcasting.”

MLB’s decided to move all of their audio content back to MLB.com, from which they reputedly distribute around 30,000 podcasts every day (about 75% of their total distribution, prior to dropping iTunes).

“We respect Apple and iTunes — we all carry iPods ourselves — but we think, in the long run, our fans will be better served on MLB.com,” [MLB Advanced Media exec Bob] Bowman said.
MLB will be adding other content, including free videos for iPod owners, to its site.

What does this mean for Apple? Not a lot. It’s, after all, one vendor, though a sizeable one, who was already doing most of their business elsewhere. It does reinforce questions about the podcasting section of iTS, which many see as a “free for all” bazaar of content. No need for panic, though. At least, not yet (cue ominous music).

[via iPodNN and blogs.MarketWatch]


1 Comments

scott said:

maybe MLB will finally allow Mac users to watch MLB.tv now too, instead of requiring the latest and greatest MS mediaplayer to view content

September 27, 2006 10:09 AM

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