NBC shows back on iTunes, in HD
NBC shows are back on the iTunes store, ending a drawn-out and unusually messy dispute between NBC Universal and Apple.
The deal was announced at Tuesday’s unveiling of the new line of iPods. The iTunes 8 upgrade includes TV programs in high definition.
Here’s the Apple site’s plug for the HD TV shows, in a bit of a mash:
”Purchase select episodes of your favorite TV shows in high definition for just $2.99. Or get the whole season in HD with a Season Pass. And when you buy HD, iTunes doubles your viewing pleasure: You also get an iPod-ready version with a file size and resolution that’s ideal for smaller screens.”
The Apple-NBC dispute dates back to last September, when Jobs and NBC Universal’s Jeff Zucker duked it out over pricing flexibility. Jobs wanted to keep all TV shows at a neat and clean $1.99, while Zucker reportedly wanted to charge as much as $4.99 a show (NBCU denies this).
The new deal has regular shows at $1.99, HD at $2.99 and some catalog stuff for a buck. Apple is showing some flex with adoption of a “season pass” that allows viewers to save money on a bulk buy. The ability to bundle programs was one of NBC’s beefs with Apple.
“Basically we were able to achieve our goal that not all contents should be of the same value,” Zucker told CNBC. “When we achieved that, we were happy to be on iTunes.” Translation: iTunes Store users lost NBCU content for a year so Zucker could make fiscally meaningless adjustments in price.
NBC Universal is offering iTunes Store customers one free episode from each of their top series, in either SD or HD, for the next two weeks. The HD sounds great, but of course the shows are available for streaming over at Hulu for no cost.
The pre-broadcast previews of NBC shows “Knight Rider,” “My Own Worst Enemy,” “Life,” “Lipstick Jungle” and “Kath & Kim” will be available on iTunes as well as on Hulu and nbc.com
The deal includes content from USA Network, SCI FI Channel and Bravo. Programming from Oxygen, Telemundo and Mun2 is coming soon, the companies said.
iTunes Store movies: new foreign policy
The iTunes Store finally has opened for movie sales and rentals in Canada and the United Kingdom. The moves follow the U.S. expansion into online rentals by a month.
Movie availability lags behind the U.S. in most cases. The movies go up day and date with the DVD release, as in the States. You’ll need a credit card that’s valid in the country of rental/purchase. That means no poaching of local fare, in any direction.
And so the featured movie in Canada is “Juno” and in the U.K. it’s “Darjeeling Limited.” In the U.S. this week, we get “Semi-Pro” and “Meet the Spartans.” That’ll show ‘em.
In Canada, about 1,200 titles are up for sale or rental. iTunes movies are available at CAN$9.99 for catalog title purchases, CAN$14.99 for recent releases and CAN$19.99 for new releases. iTunes Movie Rentals are CAN$3.99 for library titles and CAN$4.99 for new releases. High definition rental versions are priced at a dollar more.
Participating studios for iTunes Canada are 20th Century Fox, the Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, MGM Studios Inc., Sony Pictures Television International and Lionsgate and Maple Pictures.
In Britain, about 700 titles are available for starters. The U.K. pricing structure has iTunes movies available at £6.99 for catalog titles and £10.99 for new releases. Rentals are £2.49 for library title rentals and £3.49 for new releases. High definition versions are a pound more.
Participating studios for the U.K. iTunes Store are 20th Century Fox, the Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, MGM Studios Inc., Sony Pictures Television International and Lionsgate UK.
Predictably, the expansion offers no end-run around release windows for U.K. customers, who usually get titles months after the region 1 U.S. market (following theatrical patterns).
Meanwhile, over in France, l’iTunes Store now offers TV fare from the country’s networks including TF1, France Télévisions, Arté, Mediatoon’s Dargaud TV and Dupuis TV, along with U.S. shows from Disney and MTV Networks. Unfortunately for U.S. viewers with an appreciation for nudity in primetime fare, you can’t get there from here. Mon Dieu!
Apple said 25 series with about 450 episiodes are available in France. Television shows are priced at €1.49, €1.99 and €2.49 per episode.
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iTunes Store gets fresh movie downloads
iTunes made a much-needed upgrade to its movie download business with today’s news that major Hollywood films will be available on Apple’s retail site day-and-date with their DVD releases.
The movie downloads on the iTunes Store are flowing from Disney, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, as well as the major indies Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios.
The move already is paying off: Six of the top 10 iTunes movie sellers as of today were released to DVD within the past couple of weeks, led by “Cloverfield” (April 22). None of these titles were available for iTunes rental.
Only a couple of this week’s DVD releases are up there, but chick-flickers can score “27 Dresses” and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” All of these films are available for download on Amazon’s Unbox.
The lag time for movie downloads has made this business look kind of goofy, with digital product running a couple of months behind the home video window. So count this as a major victory for Steve Jobs’ bid to make the iTunes Store a dominant player in movie downloads.
This delay time is critical to film studio economics. The studios, movie exhibitors and the home video distributors and retailers have been fussing over the release window since the first Betamax hit the shelves. The window (delay) continues to close, to cinema owners’ dismay.
Apple’s press corp is struggling with the day-and-date concept.
The iTunes press release states: “New releases available for purchase on the iTunes Store this week, concurrent with their DVD release, include “American Gangster” and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” Sounds good, except “American Gangster” came out on DVD months ago. And, ironically, “Gangster” was a victim of big-time BitTorrent downloading shortly after the theatrical film came out.
iTunes also is selling “Juno,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.”
The big news came out on the fifth anniversary of the iTunes Store, a massive world-changing success in the music business.Netflix stock, trying to recover from a quarterly earnings warning that sent it down 24%, took another hit with today’s news of the iTunes movie download deal. On a terrific day for the market, NFLX took a 3% hit. AAPL was up almost 3.5%. (Disclaimer: I own Apple and bought Netflix on the big dip.)
‘American Idol’ bakes iTunes a coconut cake
I always dug “The Gong Show,” but never had much use for the excitable Fox franchise “American Idol.”
Man, one Whitney Houston in this world is enough. And why are the hipster contestants always dorks when you get to know them?
So the news that the iTunes Store has opened an “American Idol” wing could find a better publicity outlet than this online video blog, it would seem.
But that was before I checked out the free video offering on the iTunes “Idol” page.
Squeezed in with the 24 semifinalists’ audio performances (99 cents a pop) is a free download of Renaldo Lapuz, the latest goofball to go nationwide.
The Filipino-American guy dressed like a coconut layer cake is all over the Internet by now, singing his “We’re Brothers Forever.” But here on iTunes you get a beautifully presented version of the white wonder’s from Wednesday’s “Idol.” Fab.
Moving forward to the post-Lapuz era: When fans want video downloads of the “Idol” finalist performances — from the usual hunks and babes — they’ll run $1.99 on iTunes. Those videos will be available come March 11.
Fans can check out the videos for free on the “American Idol” site and then get their pristine archive downloads for iPods and iPhones.
“We think ‘American Idol’ viewers are going to love the ability to purchase and download ‘Idol’ performances from iTunes,” said Apple’s Eddy Cue. Perhaps. They certainly have loved downloading the free videos all this time …
Meanwhile, the wonderfully awful Lapuz is being hailed as the best thing on “Idol” in years. The three judges actually got off their duffs and partied with the singer. Great TV, but let’s see: A horrid but earnest performance — the judges getting into the act before issuing the big rejection — hmmm.
What a concept. Didn’t Chuck Barris and Co. do that 10 times a day?
New Apple TV is on the air
Apple TV boxes with the new and hopefully greatly improved software are in the stores.
An “Inside Apple” newsletter emailed out in the middle of the night announced the availability. Apple customers are invited to test drive the new software at a retail outlet.
As expected, the new features include rental of movies and TV shows directly from the TV-connected box, some in high definition with 5.1 surround.
Apple TV
Steve Jobs told MacWorld the updates would be available in mid-January, but the company later announced a delay. Analysts have been debating the new Apple TV software’s merits sight unseen, until now.
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