NBC's Zucker Hints At Return to iTunes

Bad corporate blood led to the collapse of the NBC/Apple business relationship in the fall of last year. Now, via the Engadget news feed, comes word that things may be thawing out between the two. A for-pay article in the Financial Times had words from NBC Universal's COE Jeff Zucker, saying: "'We've said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple.' He then unexpectedly adds, 'We're great fans of Steve Jobs.' No telling what has caused the turnabout. Perhaps the writers strike gave both parties time to reflect on their mounting lost revenue." The site also notes that NBC signed a deal as part of the recent movie rental announcement, possibly contributing to the thaw. They link to a BusinessWeek article pointing out positive statements from Jobs reciprocating these 'feelings'.

Comments

Where does this leave DRM et al?

[AndGodSed]

Sorry, someone had to ask...

If apple gets NBC on board, how will they feel about DRM in the long run?

Anything is better than nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

I no longer live in the US, and so the US iTunes Store is the easiest, most convenient way for me to get the shows I want to see.

All that happened when NBC pulled their shows is I torrented their shows, whilst purchasing the others on iTunes. I imagine others did the same.

I appreciate that NBC probably don't want to be bullied by Apple over the prices, but maybe now they are realising that the revenue they were receiving is better than none at all?

Re:Obviously...

[jollyreaper]

No, I don't think they were trying to get more money out of Apple -- they were just trying to cut Apple completely out of the equation and keep all the profits for themselves. In the process, they learned that it's hard to build an online buying community and that Apple's success with iTunes, despite all appearances, did not happen overnight. Apple had to take plenty of losses for a while before they gained enough of an audience to make more money. Apple leveraged the money it made from its other successful businesses -- namely computer hardware and software sales so they had plenty of time to ride out the initial slow period. Got it in one, Mr. Garibaldi. And you know what? I bet that there were people all up and down NBC telling him this and he refused to listen. What, those pretentious sweater geeks can do it over at Apple, it must be simple! Hey, Fran, your teenager likes computers, right? Tell him I'll give him a hundred bucks to whip up an iTunes replacement. Tell him it'll look good on his resume.

It just galls me to see how fucking incompetents who have no understanding of their industry get put into positions of power and are pile-driven into the ground. I've got a book I'm reading right now on four important commanders who fought in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The author is sympathetic to both sides but really shows how ignorant mindsets can lead to disaster. On the Japanese side, the popular fiction was that Westerners were all lazy, cowardly, and the men henpecked by domineering wives. They lacked warrior spirit and were contemptibly unworthy of their wealth. It didn't matter that many western-educated Japanese military men knew otherwise, you simply did not speak up against the cultural myth. The Japanese could not divorce poetic license from real life. All the popular talk about going and dying for the emperor instead of kicking ass and coming home alive, insane. The obsession with forcing the Decisive Naval Battle (Germans were guilty of this sort of thinking, too) while not realizing that they were losing large chunks of their fleet trying to force it. Instead of attacking the vulnerable hand wielding the sword, they determined to punch their fists right into the swordpoint. And because Japanese culture is all about not losing face and not embarrassing your superior, nobody fought the wrongheaded notions going about. Ignorant course of action were decided upon and even people who strongly disagreed with them had no recourse. There was also plenty of stupid on the American side as well, the gun club admirals having their pissing contests with the naval aviation admirals. You had MacArthur putting his own glory ahead of the best interests of the United States, good men making terrible mistakes in the heat of battle (Halsey and Taffy-3), etc. I forget who said it but it's true: the winner in a war is the side that makes the least mistakes. The United States pulled quite a few boners but the Japanese were worse off in terms of resources and cultural mindset.

The last company I worked for was like that. You get these crazy ideas handed down from on high and you had no idea who advocated the policy, what the rationale was, and simply assumed that the powers that be had access to better information than you and the whole thing must not be as crazy as it appeared. Well, turns out us peons were right: those were damn stupid decisions. But in this corporate culture, you had to protest the way the Japanese did, seppeku -- because if you criticized management, you were putting the "I'm asking to be fired" blade to your belly and giving it a good shove. So through fear and uncertainty, ignorant fools drove a profitable company into bankruptcy. When the first signs of danger showed, the smartest and ablest jumped ship. When the layoffs began, the smart and able who were too loyal to jump the first time started looking for work and jumped as soon as they found it. By the end, all that were left were the timid and people too specialized to easily find work outside of the industry.

Ok, that was a little bit of thread drift...