Apple introduced TV show rentals as part of its September event, partnering with Fox and ABC in the initial stages of the service.
Unfortunately, it appears that NBC will not jump into the fray and offer its shows, according to a Reuters report on Wednesday. NBC’s CEO doesn’t think it’s right for his company.
“We do not think 99 cents is the right price point for our content. … We thought it would devalue our content,” Zucker said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference.
News Corp President Chase Carey, called the 99-cent rental deal that Fox is involved in with Apple a “short-term test.” News Corp owns the Fox network.
It’s kind of amazing that studios haven’t figured this out. The $0.99 rental doesn’t compete with a $2.99 purchase or a season on DVD. It competes with BitTorrent.
If I miss an episode, and my only option is to wait for a year to get a copy on DVD (and for some studios, that’s the only option in Canada), you’d better believe that I’m going to check BitTorrent.
Well said. I love the idea of rentals myself.
Completely agree (how is it them bigwigs can’t see your logic?)
I’ll take True Blood as an example. My cable provider offers HBO Canada for an extra 10$+tax/month. If there were other shows from HBO I enjoyed then perhaps i’d subscribe. For TB only, it’s a no go and seeing it is not available on iTunes canada guess where I’m headed…..
We actually subscribe to the HBO + Movie channel pack. I’m not sure it’s worth it. I’d much rather just buy the episodes we want, Dexter (I think?) and True Blood.
But there, too: We already subscribe. And if there’s one thing we can count on our cableco’s On Demand service, it’s that they’ll post the episode we missed no sooner than a half hour before the next one is supposed to start. So we’ll hit up BitTorrent for that, too.
I used to know what shows were on which network back in the 13-channel days, but I don’t care anymore. All I know is that my wife and I have bought standard def episodes of NCIS, Law and Order (all flavors), The Glades, The Closer, and Bones.
We really like not having to watch stupid commercials. But we’re also not likely to re-watch any purchased shows. So rentals look pretty good to us.
We’re going to get the new iTV and hopefully find rentable material.
If not, no big loss either way.
This would not be the first time NBC/Universal changes there mind. We will see.