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NBC Chief Slamming Apple
On the heels of the beta of NBC's and News Corp.'s less-than-killer Hulu music store, NBC's chief Jeff Zucker is speaking out and saying the darnedest things. First, news.com reports, with derision, that Zucker demanded a cut of Apple's iPod revenue. That'll sure happen. Next, AppleInsider caught Zucker urging colleagues to take a stand against Apple's iTunes, charging that the digital download service was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to set profitable rates for their content online.
Ah... Hey Zucker, go shit in your own hat.
No, seriously. You want a cut of iPod revenues? Do you make hardware? Do you demand a cut of the manufacturers who produce DVD players? Do you demand a cut of the Internet carriers? Come on now. How about sticking to content creation and paying good writers to create quality content?
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news at 11. Remember when they wanted to raise album prices to $20-$25 because at $15 an album, they could only afford to buy Gulfstream 3's instead of Gulfstream 4's?
I just wrote quite the comment on the previous story on HULU, of what I think about the traditional Media Industry: my view
it's complete rhetoric, but I believe networks like NBC have lost their usefulness in light of real choice based network (ie internet).
He is just showing the world that they are building their revenues on monopoly, and that they do not like competition, as it has the tendency to lower margins. This is the behaviour that our politicians are protecting with new privacyinvading laws and software patents.
...when the movie/music industry execs get their panties up in a wad and behave like crybabies, insisting that they "deserve" a cut of profits on hardware sales. Each successive generation of corporate big shots is increasingly afflicted with the seemingly unstoppable disease that is called self-entitlement. "I'm going to cut in line because I'm busy and can't wait." "I'm going to swerve across 4 lanes of traffic while talking on my phone because I'm more important than everyone else." "That money is mine because I say it is."
As children, these folks were the ones who stood alone on the playground at recess, holding the ball, because for all intents and purposes, they believed the entire world belonged to them. And they haven't grown up since then. The only reason why they've gotten as far as they have in life is because their limitless greed and egotism is repeatedly mistaken for ambition and confidence. The sad truth is that they only have as much power as others are willing to concede to them, and so their existence is more a reflection of the inability of our society to stand up and refuse to reward such psychopathy.
Y'know, perhaps if they'd spent the last seven years concentrating on monetizing the net for media distribution instead of sinking millions into lawyers and DRM systems they might actually have beaten Apple to it.
The simple fact is Apple stepped into what was in effect an empty playing field while everyone else was still arguing over lockers in the changing room.
Apple isn't the cause of his woes. His real problem is that the Internet and the associated competition are driving the cost of his product towards the incremental cost of production, approximately zero. Artificial monopolistic barriers, such as intellectual property, are no match for the tsunami of the market.
I don't think that makes any sense at all. I'd wager that the iPhone is getting AT&T a significant number of contracts; AT&T is not helping Apple sell iPhones. In actuality, it's probably making the iPhone less appealing to consumers. Based on that, it makes sense that Apple gets a cut of AT&T's revenue.
Likewise, NBC is not helping Apple sell iPods/iPhones with their content. Ask anyone who owns an iPod/iPhone; NONE will tell you that they got it to watch officially sanctioned NBC/big time media corporation content on their devices. Most of them can get their media through other means (and these means are more likely than not illegal). If anything, Apple is doing these companies a favor by presenting the media in a highly accessible/available/cheap format for the more conscientious consumer. If anything, Apple is helping them sell content that would otherwise be pirated.
Now, it can be argued that the conscientious are provided more incentive to buy an Apple media device with the availability of officially sanctioned content. But I highly doubt that the content would draw significant numbers to warrant Apple giving up revenue. I feel that having video playback capability in the media players is enough to draw customers, even without the availability of actual content, especially when content can be user generated.
Thats really the rub in all this though isn't it? None of them wanted to take the alternate distribution systems seriously, or invest any of their own money into one. But some one else did, And it worked well enough to become 'the standard'. And now they have the market and boo hoo! Poor NBC was to cowardly to expand outside their dinosaur business model and got left behind! So they're going to take their ball and go home. Which, might be a smart move if their ball wasn't deflated with gum stuck on it, and there weren't plenty of other kids with balls too.
Zucker whines
but unfortunately (for him and his ilk), he's fighting against both the inevitability of technological change and the just rewards (poetic justice, karma, payback, what-goes-around-comes-around,
As an amateur calligrapher with family members who are performers, I can confidently assert that:
Let's see NBC sharing a cut of their profits with a health insurance fund for performers. Then maybe I'll start listening to anything he has to say about being on the receiving end of a revenue-sharing proposal. Maybe.