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NBC Moves From iTunes to Amazon

Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 at 8:20 AM - by

NBC executives decided last week not to renew the company's contract with the iTunes Store, and Apple countered by dropping the network's lineup before the current contract ran out. Now NBC is expanding its relationship with Amazon by offering its shows through the online retailer's Unbox service, according to The New York Times.

Amazon agreed to NBC's demand for more flexible pricing -- something Apple refused to do. While final pricing for NBC's TV shows has not been set yet, Unbox will offer 30 percent discounts for customers that purchase a complete season. Depending on how NBC's deal with Amazon works out, individual shows could cost more than the US$1.99 at the iTunes Store.

The popularity of Amazon's Unbox trails far behind Apple's iTunes Store, so NBC may be giving the service a much needed shot in the arm. Unbox's reliability issues, however, coupled with a lack of iPod support, could still hamper the service's popularity.

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burrito said:

member since 07 Aug 2005 with 177 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Sep 05, 2007 9:58 am

first the paramount hd-dvd payola, now this.

microsoft should just wither up and die.

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buttercupboxer said:

member since 10 Jan 2007 with 16 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:16 am

How does moving your media to a less popular store mean better results? Big media seems to be losing braincells as much as anything.

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vasic said:

member since 09 Aug 2005 with 279 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:30 am

This is an exellent oportunity for a high-profile leson for everyone. Those willing to learn from this experience will have a chance to see:

1. How much weight NBC has, by observing if the arrival of NBC affects the popularity of Unbox;

2. What users think of the new pricing, by carefully observing the few transactions that Unbox generates, especially withrespect to NBC's different pricing structure;

3. For the next four months, how NBC's old shows continue to sell on iTunes, as opposed to the sales volumes on Unbox.

All seems to indicate that abandoning iTunes is extremely detrimental to your online content delivery business. While nobody likes monopolies (they bully everyone into accepting their own terms), in this case, the monopoly works for the benefit of the consumer (in addition to the benefit of its own business), and right now provides the only reasonable way to reliably deliver media content online to the greatest audience.

NBC will be back in January. I have no doubt. And Apple will not compromise.

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Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:58 am

So, you move from iTunes, the number one digital content store in the US, to one that I, as an avid computer user and online reader (not to mention Amazon.com customer) have never even heard of until today?

Yeah, there's some brilliant strategy for you.

Nuthin' But Crap.

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vasic said:

member since 09 Aug 2005 with 279 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Sep 05, 2007 11:11 am

Re-reading the first paragraph, I realise that the TMO story is a bit unclear. Apple did not pull ALL NBC content; they are keeping everything NBC already has online. The new fall season episodes are the ones that won't be available for the remaining three-four months of NBC's contract with Apple. Once the contract does expire, though, the remaining NBC stuff will go as well.

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gslusher said:

member since 13 Nov 2002 with 2088 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Sep 05, 2007 2:50 pm

Tiger wrote:
So, you move from iTunes, the number one digital content store in the US, to one that I, as an avid computer user and online reader (not to mention Amazon.com customer) have never even heard of until today?

Yeah, there's some brilliant strategy for you.

Nuthin' But Crap.

Not only that, but, if that computer you use avidly is a Mac, you're SOL. Unbox uses Microsoft's DRM, so it doesn't work with Macs.

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DaiMac said:

member since 29 Jun 2001 with 952 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Sep 05, 2007 6:12 pm

Yeah, this is just another in a long line of boneheaded moves by Universal. I for one had begun to eagerly anticipate the new Bionic Woman TV show, not to mention my love for Battlestar, but now I have to think twice about supporting a corporation that does such idiotic things repeatedly. Just like buying MS Office, you're basically rewarding crappy behavior everytime you give MS money (and lords know I've done it myself).

But yeah, it won't be tough for us to boycott Unbox, they've already boycotted us as Gslusher said

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