ipod
10/18/2005, 11:45am, EDT
Tuesday, October 18th
Apple faces hard time wooing Hollywood to new iPod
Apple faces a far tougher task wooing film and television producers to create shows for the new video iPod than it did in the music industry, Reuters UK reports. In the week since Jobs unveiled the handheld iPod, which plays video clips on a 2.5-inch diagonal screen, media and technology executives have been trying to figure out whether people will watch shows on a small screen, what types of programs will work and whether money can be made at the $1.99 price Apple set. "There is no doubt people are going to access content in more flexible ways going forward," said Rick Feldman, who heads the National Association of Television Program Executives. "What we don't know, for independent producers, is what kind of content is going to be wanted and needed, what it will cost and what it can be made for," he added. Sources familiar with the thinking at rivals NBC and CBS said those networks have talked to Apple about providing content, but that the $1.99 price tag was too low.
Filed under: iPod
, 
, 11
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
Top
subscribe to comments
for this article
I can't believe how much of a premium some content providers are looking to charge for things that can be readily obtained at little or no cost.
I can go out a buy the Lost season 1 DVD for what, about $40.00 at most places ($39 at Amazon right now)? Contains 24 episodes. That is $1.62 per episode, and the studio has to pay for development of the DVD, pressing of the disks, and distribution.
Flip to the ITMS- $1.99 for a low quality episode, Apple is the one who does all of the distributing (bandwidth), encoding, etc.. no overhead at all for the studio. And that STILL isnt enough?? Give me a break.
The answer is no-one. Bloated, self-important media companies are in trouble and they deserve the screwing they're going to get.
Steve, give me a call. I get it.
I can go out a buy the Lost season 1 DVD for what, about $40.00 at most places ($39 at Amazon right now)? Contains 24 episodes. That is $1.62 per episode, and the studio has to pay for development of the DVD, pressing of the disks, and distribution.
Yeah, but you're forgetting an important fact (or facts).
1) You can't get wednesday's episode of Lost on DVD until summer 2006. Apple's might be offering better distribution, but its also offering a service that you otherwise wouldn't have.
2) Networks who produce and air shows try to make them 'appointment' television to sell gobs of ad time and the like. If you offer the rebroadcast rights the next day for a cheap price, there's no incentive to watch it the night before, so less viewers of ABC's ads, so less revenue (keep in mind they also use the shows to promote their other crap, so that might help spur more viewers to other shows which they'd otherwise not get people to watch).
Meanwhile, music files are available, generally, from both the stores on CD and digitally, at the same time. So you do feel you have options, and as such, pricing should be done accordingly.
Apple's video and audio distribution is completely different. Therefore, trying to use the whole digital music arguments onto the video side of things is just foolhardy. Come up with some better arguments.
(BTW, I think, though, that video content that's available on DVD should be priced comparatively to the DVD price, but non-available video is a different story).
I think he meant the QUALITY is too low.
How about this one: You charge more than $2.00, and people will either 1) not buy the video, 2) Tivo it and skip the commercials anyway, 3) Buy the DVD when it comes out.
Looks to me like the broadcast industry is trying to go the way of the music industry- rather than adapting to change, and coming up with a new business model based on this new form of "broadcasting", they are trying to simply profit, profit, profit, while continuing to alienate their customer base.
IMHO, if the broadcasting and music industry sat down, and looked the the current technology, and adapt to what can be done now, they could make out like bandits (profit like mad) while still keeping their customers happy. Instead, they cling to their old sinking ship of traditional broadcasting/distribution revenue's, and sooner or later, someone is (IMHO, people already are) going to step up to the plate, fulfill what people want, and the various studios, broadcasters, etc.. are going to be feeling a great deal of hurt.
I should think it must be quite frustrating for a company like Apple, who rely entirely on well considered use-case scenarios to have to work with an industry which doesn't know what one is. (Case in point: DVDs are generally designed for a 'home cinema' use-case scenario, ie. gather around, make popcorn, darken the room, begin the show. Fine if you are doing that, but if you just want to show someone a scene, by the time you've sat through all the BS animated menus and copyright warnings, you just want to stab somebody in the throat. I convert *all* my DVDs to full resolution QuickTime movies. Life is too short for bad design.)
iPod video seems essentially like iPod audio. You move shows to it like you rip CDs. You take it to a friend's house. You plug it in the TV and watch a video. You program a night of mixed shorts. In a tight spot, you might watch something on the bus. You might *even* buy a show, if that suits you. But iPod video isn't about creating movies to sell to people to watch on a tiny screen. It's about making video as portable as audio and pictures. Most music on iPods is not bought as downloads and has no DRM. Most video will not be bought as downloads and will have no DRM. The iPod is a product with many uses.
Hollywood downloads are not really essential to the product, nor is iPod video comparable to video on mobile phones. Hollywood doesn't seem to even understand what they might be selling yet: convenience? timeliness? I'm betting they want to sell viewing minutes, like video on mobile phones, but I can't see that working out with an iPod, which is a storage device, rather than a transmitter/receiver device like a mobile phone.