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NBC Jumps Onboard with Zune

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 10:30 AM - by

NBC is jumping back into the online media store game again, but it instead of returning to the iTunes Store, the network has teamed up with Microsoft's Zune online store. As part of the deal, customers will be presented with bundled TV show purchases and a variable pricing structure.

JB Perrette, president of NBC Universal Digital Distribution, commented "Partnering with Zune will allow us to develop innovative content offerings for their customers, including flexible pricing and packaging options beginning this fall."

NBC and Apple parted ways after the Mac and iPod maker refused to relinquish control over TV show pricing and force customers to purchase certain shows in bundles. Apple claimed that NBC wanted to charge customers too much while NBC said that Apple was unfairly controlling the pricing structure.

Zune online store customers will have access to a wide range of NBC owned programs including South Park, The Office, Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, Robot Chicken, and more. The Zune online store sells its content for Microsoft Points that customers purchase in blocks, and each show will be priced at 160 points (about US$1.99).

NBC's alliance with Microsoft's Zune brand looks to be another part of its "anything but Apple" stance since leaving the iTunes Store. While NBC has occasionally said that it likes working with Apple, so far there has been no public indication that the network intends to return to the market leading iTunes Store.

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DrD said:

member since 28 Apr 2003 with 41 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue May 06, 2008 12:38 pm

'Teaming up with Microsoft's Zune online store'

Otherwise known as fastening a ball and chain to your ankle.

NBC really don't seem to be showing much in the way of business sense here, the zune store doesn't even work with most non-ipod's. In purely financial terms, the harm done to NBC as a brand by association with the Zune will quite possibly exceed any small revenues earned through the store.

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 06, 2008 12:41 pm

L O L !!!!

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 06, 2008 12:53 pm

So much for the lies that Eddie Cue of Apple was spreading about NBC demanding $4.99 for a TV show. Looks like NBC was telling the truth all along, it just wanted flexible pricing! Sorry Eddie & Steve, NBC called your bluff and now has their shows being distributed online by more than one service, none of which are yours. There goes about a third of the iTunes TV downloads.

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Dreadnought said:

member since 01 Jan 2005 with 162 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue May 06, 2008 1:00 pm

Great that they are selling their shows on the Zune Marketplace store, but who's going to buy them? I have never seen a Zune II in the wild, and none of the big box or electronics retailers I've been in in the last few weeks have even had a Zune display, let alone any products in a mixed display case.

Good luck with that, NBC. Hope you choke on all that revenue from the Zune.

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 06, 2008 1:04 pm

I'm pretty sure MS is funding the downloads to get them as low as US$1.99 and do not forget it is variable .. so it only goes up from there probably

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 06, 2008 1:17 pm

Variable pricing. Yeah, that never confuses your customers. "So, you can have this program for $1.99, except on Tuesdays, when it is $2.99, or you can buy it in a package with these other four programs that you don't want for $5.99, except in locations where it is still airing or might air, in which case you cannot buy it, but you can have a synopsis of it for just 50 cents. And it only plays on your Zune, but for an extra charge we allow you to play it on your computer on Wednesdays."

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 06, 2008 2:12 pm

yeah, prices never change, i've never seen anything ever drop in price after some time period. consumers can never deal with that, nothing ever gets sold. i mean, just look at the iphone, unannounced variable pricing totally hosed that product. DVDs never sell because their prices are not all the same and their prices sometimes change over time.

Is it just apple nerds that have trouble doing math?

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vasic said:

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

Tue May 06, 2008 2:45 pm

Hold it, folks, it seems that we have a microsoftie here! Well, dear (anonymous) guest, Eddie Cue wasn't quite spreading lies; NBC DID want $4.99 per show; they said almost as much in their statement ("... partnering with Zune will allow us... flexible pricing.."). As in, $4.99 per show.

As for the second question, it is painfully obvious that physical markets and download markets aren't quite the same. In the real, physical world, we all had plenty of time to learn how to shop around, how much things are worth, how retailers work, etc. In the download world, nobody knows anything. Consumers are dipping their toes. It seems so far that Apple's strategy was working, and the obvious reasons behind that was to lure consumers into the unknowns of the digital download market by making it painfully simple. Any minor wrinkle or complication and they will step away.

Cue Zune Marketplace: one single TV show download costs 160 points. How much is this in US dollars (a rather common method of pricing products in the United States)? Let's look up the exchange rate for the Zune Point: 80 to 1, meaning $2. Now, let's, for the argument's sake, suppose that I have some 875 points in my Zune account. Quick, now: how many shows can I buy? How many more points do I need for a full season? How much actual money is this going to cost me? How do I even relate to this Zune points money? Perhaps if I can associate it with some real currency. Albanian Lek seems to have about the same exchange rate; perhaps I can pretend I'm shopping in Albania, that might make it appear more reasonable (it may as well be selling only to Albanian market anyway).

How soon do the points expire? If you don't log in after 60 days, your points are gone. If you don't replenish your account with points (regardless of how much you already have there) within 3 months, your points are gone. Nice one, Microsoft.

I keep repeating this every time Zune marketplace is mentioned because of the absurdity of the concept. Good luck (MS)NBC with your Zune experiment.

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 06, 2008 3:42 pm

Sorry son, go back and read the articles from before. NBC says, we want flexible pricing, Apple spreads a rumor (their normal method of controlling the media) that NBC wants $4.99, NBC says no we want flexible pricing because not every show is worth the same. NBC leaves, finds other avenues, gets flexible pricing in the contract, prices new shows at $1.99. Just the facts ma'am.

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marcsten said:

member since 01 Jun 2004 with 17 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue May 06, 2008 3:44 pm

Wow. First HD-DVD and now this. Universal really can't do anything right. Still, what did you expect from MSNBC?

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 06, 2008 3:51 pm

That quote is incomplete. Why would you leave out the last part? Here it is in its entirety:

"Partnering with Zune will allow us to develop innovative content offerings for their customers, including flexible pricing and packaging options beginning this fall and ending six months later when we abruptly end it in order to, uh, better serve our viewer. Wait, I mean viewers, as in plural."

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vasic said:

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

Tue May 06, 2008 4:06 pm

Our guest here keeps missing the point; flexible pricing or $4.99 per show, makes no difference and it misses the point of simplifying it for the audience that still doesn't know much about downloading.

Zune marketplace illustrates it perfectly: on top of the show pricing confusion (so, how much DO these shows actually cost?) we have the points system. As I said; good luck, NBC.

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 06, 2008 4:32 pm

Guest wrote:
Sorry son, go back and read the articles from before. NBC says, we want flexible pricing, Apple spreads a rumor (their normal method of controlling the media) that NBC wants $4.99, NBC says no we want flexible pricing because not every show is worth the same. NBC leaves, finds other avenues, gets flexible pricing in the contract, prices new shows at $1.99. Just the facts ma'am.

Unless you were a party to the negotiations, you have no idea of what NBC actually requested of Apple and/or Microsoft. Apple's statement about the issue was made in an official press release -- hardly "spreading a rumor". Simple enough, eh?

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 06, 2008 4:53 pm

Very simple, just the facts. Apple said they wanted $4.99, NBC said no we asked for flexible pricing. NBC gets said flexible pricing from another vendor and does not set the price even close to $4.99. These facts lead to a very obvious conclusion, that flexible pricing is what NBC wanted, just as it said. It's easier to make your argument if you start to assume things without any evidence, but then you prove nothing other than your bias towards certain assumptions.

Is it really that hard to read a number? It doesn't seem impact the sales of anything else online or offline. Is it just Apple's customer base that thinks different products at different prices is highly complex? Reality does not bear this out with any other product. You have a much better argument on the whole points system being more complex, but to suggest reading a price for a product is complex only highlights your own inabilities or the inabilities of the typical iTunes customer. In fact it has nothing to do with complexity, that is just more spin. It has to do with control, control that iTunes would not give up, and so instead they have given up the product.

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LaurieF said:

member since 15 Jun 2001 with 3547 posts, TMO Forum Mod, send him a message or view his profile

Tue May 06, 2008 5:11 pm

Translation of previous post: I'll swap your bigotry for mine...

It looks to me as though NBC took a hospital pass.

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue May 06, 2008 6:17 pm

LaurieF wrote:
Translation of previous post: I'll swap your bigotry for mine...

It looks to me as though NBC took a hospital pass.

That's a hefty accusation, care to back it up? Where's the bigotry? Or did you just want to make it personal?

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LaurieF said:

member since 15 Jun 2001 with 3547 posts, TMO Forum Mod, send him a message or view his profile

Tue May 06, 2008 9:10 pm

It is neither hefty, nor an accusation. Learn to read.

This is an Apple-oriented website. You will find that (majority of) the registered posters here have a bias towards Apple products. Bias is a synonym for bigotry.

You, whoever the hell you are, are not Apple-oriented. You have a different set of biases. There isn't anything personal in it. Unless you want there to be.

You're a bigot. I'm a bigot. Everyone's a bigot. It's whether you have the ability to see the bigger picture as to whether you can cope with another point of view.

Personally I don't believe that the Zune will ultimately successful. I don't, as a corollary, think that NBC's service on the Zune will be successful. But that's not, in this case, because I'm bigot - I just don't see how it's going to work.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed May 07, 2008 2:41 pm

Wow! Speaking of reading..

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/bias

http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/bias

Nope, not a synonym. Let's see, a synonym for bigotry would be... intolerance, right. Yeah, intolerance != bias.

Coping with another point of view is what people with bias can do, people who cannot might start calling someone a bigot. No substitute for education I guess.

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LaurieF said:

member since 15 Jun 2001 with 3547 posts, TMO Forum Mod, send him a message or view his profile

Wed May 07, 2008 6:17 pm

Don't try playing that game with me, pal: you're gonna lose.

Get into Microsoft Word, type in bigotry and do a Thesaurus lookup. Then mutter to yourself. And don't start making assumptions about my level of education. When I suggested that you learn to read, it was because you had ignored what I had said and switched to an ad hominem argument.

Note that I not only called you a bigot (which you are), I called myself a bigot (which I am). You object to it as if it were a bad thing. We all have a level of bias and lack of appreciation of the other point of view when conflicts with our own. Again, go back and read what I wrote.

But this has nothing to do with NBC and the Zune - do you have anything else to say?

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed May 07, 2008 8:47 pm

Haha, ok, yes, let's use Microsoft Word instead of a dictionary to understand the English language. We all know that Microsoft should be defining the meaning of words, but when I do that, Word definitely does not show bigotry as a synonym for bias! When you look up bigotry and it chooses to use "prejudice" it shows bias as the 4th synonym. Do me a favor and actually click bias, and then look for the word bigotry, you will not find it.

I object to your putting words in my mouth. Your translation was clearly incorrect, even if I concede that the two words are synonyms they still have different meanings based on their definitions and connotations. In no way did I ever mean to call anyone a bigot.

You're absolutely right; this has nothing to do with the Zune or NBC. Maybe I should have cared about your "hospital pass" comment but it really isn't deep or meaningful. I think anyone would consider someone else trying "translate" their own words substantive, you were putting words in my mouth. It seems that by your doing that you have most certainly taken this discussion off topic, just like the ad hominem argument you supposedly oppose. I am sorry I ever acknowledged your using the word bigotry. This is my last post about your use of the word bigot, and your attempt to make that word my meaning. It was not.

I have already said more than you on the actual topic at hand and you haven’t given me anything on the topic deserving of a response. None of the phrases "Personally I don’t believe", "hospital pass" nor "I just don’t see how it’s going to work" contain any real substance. Do you have anything worthwhile to say on the subject?

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Brutno said:

member since 28 Aug 2002 with 198 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu May 08, 2008 12:08 pm

Both from Dictionary.com:

big·ot

n. One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

bi·as

2. a particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.

Close enough for me. One vote for LaurieF.

As for the argument at hand - If anyone thinks NBC just shopped around until they found someone that would give them exactly what they want then they're naоve or ignorant. Even MS is not so oblivious as to believe anyone would pay $4.99 for one TV episode. (Some reports state that MS is subsidizing episodes that NBC felt should sell for more.)

More likely - NBC used this insane pricing scheme to get out of doing business with Apple - at Apple's expense. Spin after-the-fact won't work. When Apple called NBC's bluff they were left hanging, so their strategy of "Anyone but Apple" netted them the Zune Marketplace, at Apple's selling price of - surprise - $1.99/episode. Tell me, what exactly did NBC gain with their histrionics? Oh, right - the "Content cop". That'll work.

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