Finally, a Reason to Use My Zune …
If NBC Universal is going to win concessions from Apple in its dispute over the pricing of television shows on iTunes, it’s going to have to do a bit better than spitefully peddling episodes of its new fall television shows on Amazon’s Unbox. Just days after announcing it would not renew its contract with Apple’s iTunes, NBCU said it will sell shows like “Heroes,” “The Office” and “30 Rock” through Amazon’s mediocre, odiously restrictive, Windows-only video download service. Episodes will be available on Unbox the day after they are shown.
“Amazon is somebody who understands the wholesale-retail relationships and understands the need for wholesalers to price their content flexibly,” Jean-Briac Perrette, president of NBC Universal Digital Distribution, told Bloomberg. And we’ll have to take him at his word on that, since the initial pricing under the deal looks looks vaguely familiar. NBC shows will be sold for $1.99–the same price Apple charges on iTunes. What was it Jupiter analyst Michael Gartenberg said about NBC Universal’s handling of its iTunes contract negotiations again? “Sometimes I think God put video content guys on the planet to make the music guys look progressive and visionary.”
