macnn/ipodnn
03/07/2008, 6:40pm, EST
Friday, March 7th
Classic TV shows coming to Disney.com
Disney has announced that it will begin offering classic TV shows over the internet via its website. The company already sells full-length feature films and modern hit TV shows through Apple's iTunes Store, but classic shows which still remain unnamed will debut directly on Disney.com, according to the New York Times. "In the near future, you'll see more of that product available on Disney.com, either for free or through some sort of subscription," said Roger Iger, CEO of Disney. "Providing physical goods on DVD is tougher and tougher these days because shelf space is limited."
Disney produced classic series such as 'Davy Crockett' and 'Zorro' in the 1950s, and is building Web revenue by offering ad-supported episodes online. Iger refrained from naming which classic shows will appear on Disney.com, but promised shareholders at a meeting on Thursday that the company will soon expand its Web offerings.
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Oh goodness, what will the evil merchants put the squeeze on next?!?!
The movement to online video has begun a while ago. We are seeing a major move to this now. Mixing pay and free movies is the way to go to get folks to adopt to the format.
On top of that is just the fact that the market may not be there at all to even justify a DVD pressing, distribution, etc.
The iTMS held great promise when they first started doing video. Several old TV shows appeared, making one think of how much of the back-catalog (both TV and Film) could be made available for a low price.
But Apple made the mistake of sticking to it's $1.99 per show (so a new episode of Lost is worth the same as a 40 year old episode of Adam-12?). And someone out there (probably the studios, but could also be Apple) found they weren't raking in the cash, so decided to just not bother adding more (hell, even the ones they added, they never completed).
So, on the iTMS, we get the enjoyment of loads of crappy reality programs from various cable outlets (because it's new, and "real", someone's stupid enough to pay!), but not one sniff of the quality programming, let alone the enjoyable programming, of the last 50 years.
I'm not inferring that it's a smart move on their part, but you certainly can't blame them for testing the 'direct to user' waters. Certainly affords them the opportunity to experiment with variable pricing, etc.
I'd personally prefer that Apple just allow the studios to set the price for their content in an effort to keep everyone on board - and the ITMS the one-stop shop for everything.