NBC to Leave iTunes

This is interesting: NBC has decided to end their relationship with iTunes after Apple refused to up the price on their shows from $1.99/episode to $4.99. Read Apple's story here - and get NBC's side of the story here.

Here's my two cents: it boggles my mind that NBC actually thought the consumer would be willing to pay $4.99/episode when they can get episodes from other networks for $1.99. I mean, really - these days the consumer doesn't have to look very hard to find free episodes to download. I would guess that raising the price to $4.99 would push more consumers to hunt for those free episodes instead of paying for them and the company would end up losing money anyway.

What do you think? Would you pay $4.99/episode for your favorite TV show?

[This opens a whole other can of worms: the iTunes effect on the music industry. Any thoughts? If you've come across any blogs recently discussing this, let me know - I'll be posting something this week on this as it's kind of fresh on my mind.]

Comments

[Reg Bertrand]

Not a chance

[Melanie]

They haven't even convinced me to pay $1.99 per episode, much less $4.99. LOL There isn't much on tv worth that much.

[Jeremy]

This is the response I was expecting. I can't remember paying $1.99 for a TV show either - if I missed a show I wanted to watch I would catch it online somewhere (some of the networks are doing the same thing - streaming the episodes for a certain amount of time).

[Holly Ross]

Yeah, I've never broken down to pay $1.99 for a show that will likely come on re-runs anyway. I can just set my DVR to record "First run AND repeats" to catch it the second time around. The only time I've ever found TV shows being on iTunes useful (besides the occasional free episodes) is when my brother LOVED a new show ("Smith") that got canceled after only 7 episodes. I was able to buy him all 7 eps, plus a script that described the plotline of the remaining unfilmed episodes, on iTunes for Christmas one year.

[Mark]

I'm not willing to pay $1.99 for an episode of a TV show. I either record it, watch it live, or wait for the DVD set or reruns....

Still lots of ways to watch it without paying that much per episode.

Mark

[Carla]

I don't use iTunes, but...

I recently noticed that our Comcast "On Demand" no longer includes NBC (just CBS now). We only pay for the digital cable, not for the shows, so I bet it's for the same reason.

There's no way I'd pay an additional $5 to watch a single show when I already pay what I think is too much for cable.

DVR (on my computer, btw) all the way!