Tag: nbc

Instead of just assuming things and ranting on, I checked out the NBC catalog on iTunes. It turns out they’re not selling full episodes for $1.99 at all. It’s much worse than that. They’re selling popular sketches they’ve had in the past for $1.99, sketches that are only 4-5 minutes long. They’re also selling special shows like Conan’s 10th anniversary show on iTunes. I think when I looked at it there were only two full shows, no everyday shows. These special episodes are $10.99! I love Conan and that 10th anniversary show was awesome, but $9.99 for one show is just too much. Just keep in the commercials and distribute them as video podcasts. People do watch the commercials, not everyone fast forwards through the commercials.

Speaking of free shows, I found this MariposaHD. It’s the first internet show in HD. I haven’t watched it yet, I have to clean up some space on my hard drive for these huge files (2.1 GB for the 1080i and 1.3 GB for the 720p). I’m not sure what it’s about. There are some girls in bikinis, it’s filmed in South America and in High-Definition. I don’t need much more than that to watch it or recommend it.

It was reported a couple of days ago that iTunes would make a deal with NBC to sell the shows on iTunes Music Store following ABC’s footsteps. When they started selling shows on iTunes, I was skeptical. I didn’t think people would buy episodes for $1.99 each, especially those Pixar shorts, when they can watch them on TV for free or Tivo it. The shows are also in low resolutions and you can only watch it on your computer and “iPod with Video” as Apple likes to call it instead of Video iPod.

Well anyway, NBC actually has some shows I want to watch i.e. Conan and Battlestar Galactica. I usually goto sleep way before Conan time. Sometimes I’m home Friday night to watch it. I don’t even know what channel the Sci-Fi channel is let alone what time it’s on. So these shows I would consider downloading.

Shows like Desparate Housewives, which I guess is about 12-13 espisode per season would be worth it to buy it for $1.99, but Conan would be hundreds of episodes to choose from.
365 minus (weekends 52 weeks times 2 days) equals 263 days. Then take out 50 days for holidays and Conan off time. So around 200 episodes per year, which means around $400 a year for every episode. As good as Conan is, $400 is a lot of money a year. It’s just not worth it. Tivo, replayTV, MythTV or any other Media Recorder is definitely worth it over buying them on iTunes. Of course downloading them off bitorrent is not an option. wink, wink.

Don’t price every TV show higher than music. At least price shows like Conan and Jay Leno at a much lower cost than shows like Lost and Desparate Housewives. I would even go as far as offering Conan and Leno as video podcasts and leaving in the commercials. There’s so many shows and they don’t offer DVD’s of them because they’re so many. ABC’s considering putting Sportcenter shows as video podcasts and you’re following in their footsteps.