[opendtv] Re: News: NBC chief says Apple 'destroyed' music pricing

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2007 07:22:53 -0500

At 9:21 AM -0800 11/6/07, John Willkie wrote:

Nobody controls what you watch, aside from you.  But, you blame others.
Boo-hoo. You have options; life is too short to blame others for your
choices.

You are correct that i decide what to watch. But you are wrong about the choices that I have and what I must pay for those choices.

I DO NOT watch the vast majority of channels that I am FORCED to pay for if I want the few channels that I do watch. As you say, I could just say no to all of them. But I cannot say - I only want to pay for what I am actually consuming. And I am subjected to advertising loads that are historically unprecedented.

As for the Eagles... They are a music group, not a TV show. The music industry has moved well down the path away from control by a few music conglomerates. Wal Mart is the biggest retailer of music in the country - they have the leverage to do deals like the Eagles release. By the way, Apple has had a significant number of exclusive releases for iTunes.

The reason that Some of the media conglomerates are opting out of using the iTunes store is that Apple refuses to play the differential pricing game,. They want to charge a premium for new releases to force people to buy bundles (at a premium) of stuff they don't want to get the content they do want.

The sad fact is that even at 99 cents the price of a song is at least double what it should be for everyone to make a decent profit. I guess that makes Apple a co-conspirator too...

And $1.99 to watch a TV show is more than adequate, when a movie rental costs $3-4.

At least the media conglomerates are starting to piss people off. As you say, the opportunity now exists to change the rules of the game. But the media conglomerates are not going to go down easy - they have too many advantages thanks to their friends in D.C.

Regards
Craig


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