NBC: iTunes brings us "pennies", no leeway
updated 04:30 pm EDT, Mon October 29, 2007
NBC CEO on Apple
NBC president and CEO Jeff Zucker has expressed his views on the formal relationship between his television network and Apple, which is set to expire this December. NBC canceled its contract with Apple after negotiations fell apart between the two firms. NBC asked for the freedom to experiment with pricing on some of its hit shows, and requested a share of Apple's hardware revenues -- which NBC says saw an extravagant boost as a result of its content coming to the iTunes Store, according to Variety.
"We wanted to take one show, it didn't matter which one it was, and experiment and sell it for $2.99," Zucker said. "We made that offer for months and [Apple] 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."
NBC programming made up 40 percent of the iTunes Store video sales last year, but that content will disappear this December with the expiration of the contract between the network and Apple. NBC only made $15 million during the last year of its deal with Apple, according to the executive.
"We don't want to replace the dollars we were making in the analog world with pennies on the digital side," Zucker explained.






Grizzled Veteran
Joined: Oct 1999
hardware share?
Hmm...sound familiar? No wait, wasn't that Universal and Microsoft? Of course it is NBC-Universal, surprise, surprise!