Jeez, and you thought Steve Jobs was bad tempered. NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker recently explained why the company told Apple/iTunes to fly a kite. If you guessed greed as being a major factor, well then you have a pulse because that’s what everyone thought.
“We wanted to take one show, it didn’t matter which one it was, and experiment and sell it for $2.99. We made that offer for months and they said no…. Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money. They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing.”
Or, even more direct, NBC Universal was afraid that going from the analog era to the digital era would mean a transformation of revenue from “dollars into pennies.”
Good luck with Hulu, guys. You’ll need it.
Zucker says Apple deal rotten [Variety]
So does NBC get a cut from every TV set sold? Every DVD player sold? Every Radio sold?
Didn’t think so.
Just letting you guys know I think you meant wasn’t and got wan’t instead in the title…love crunchgear…keep up the good work!
“…Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money.”
Uh, I don’t know if TV shows account for one braziilionth of a spec of consideration when buying a computer.
I love his rationale. they begged and pleaded for months to raise the price. How could he possibly justify that backward, customer-last mentality? Everything else is cheaper, but let’s just see if we can screw the consumer for just a little more. Eat me.
Yeah, I’m sure that everyone who buys and iPod did so just so they could watch “Family Guy” on the bus. Uh-huh.