GoldbergBlog

This past week, NBC announced it would not be renewing it’s contract with Apple’s iTunes store. While it’d be nice to know who is responsible for this monumentally bone-headed decision, I imagine it’s a conglomerate of lawyers, accountants, and executives who were likely profiting (they never would have bothered to be the first network to sign up with iTunes video (after ABC, of course) if it didn’t mean they’d profit) but decided they could be making that ever-elusive, oh-so-sexy “more“. But iTunes didn’t want to create a confusing pricing scheme and it doesn’t do the Apple Store any good if people are complaining about over-priced product. You can tell them that all the other shows are still $1.99, but people will keep whining about the three dollar jump for a half-hour episode of The Office. And while I believe that The Office is worth every penny, $4.99 for twenty-two episodes adds up over the course of a television season ($109.78, to be exact).

The Internet has been aflame with this news, almost to the point where I thought a blog entry would be superfluous since others had already covered it so well and so much better. But looking around (and by looking around, I mean whatever Digg and Reddit brought to my attention), I saw that while people were definitely picking up on how NBC was in for a world of lost-profits and higher rates of piracy and they deserved the utmost condemnation for their rejection of new media in distributing their shows, I realized that no one was talking about the shows.

Do you love The Office? I know I do. Once Arrested Development went off the air (a show I honestly believe could have been saved by Internet distribution), The Office became the funniest show on television. Even if AD were still on the air, it would have stiff competition from the crew of Dunder-Mifflin. But without iTunes, there would be no Office. The problem is that most shows don’t explode right from the pilot. In fact, the pilot tends to be the worst episode because it has to serve up a ton of exposition and set up the world. The only show I can recall in recent memory with a killer pilot was Lost and that was a show that was trying to obfuscate and confuse rather than lay down all the rules of the world and the series. The Office had a tremendously difficult first season as it struggled to find the right tone and step out from the shadow of its British fore-runner of the same name. Unless they’re really fascinated by the premise, really love the cast, and really see the potential, viewers don’t want to fight for a show. They don’t want to make an appointment to sit down in front of their television and support a show that may not last longer than a month. Sure, they can use a DVR (if they have one) and record the show but it’s still taking time to sit down in front of the TV when they may want to be out with friends. Isn’t it better to be able to download shows and watch them on the go?

Furthermore, the iTunes store offers shows in such an easy to find form and relatively-high quality download, that it does something the limited power of television couldn’t do before: give audiences a chance to see a new show. I watched the first couple episodes of 30 Rock and while I thought it was funny, I didn’t think it was anything special. It wasn’t until the iTunes store offered the episode “The Rural Juror” for free that I watched the show in its groove and saw how painfully funny it was. This is the show I was hoping it would evolve into but I didn’t have the patience to wait and see if and when that transformation would occur. Earlier this week, I bought Friday Night Lights, a show that I never would have paid a second glance if not for the critical adulation and the opportunity to download the pilot episode for free.

Yes, NBC offered episodes of these shows for free from their own website, but the poor quality of streaming downloads coupled with ads made this option less preferable, especially when I couldn’t save these episodes to my computer to watch at my leisure. There’s no wi-fi on most airplanes and I’ve needed my iPod Video many times to get me through the long flights and entertain me with TV episodes.

Apple has already stated that they will not carry any of NBC’s new episodes of the fall season because they’d have to cut off midway through the season when the contract expires in December. So are shows like Chuck, Bionic Woman, Journeyman, and Life all going to find their audience? Of course not, and it’s going to be even more difficult by closing down a proven source of revenue.

I understand that NBC wants more money. They’re a business and their business model is changing right before their eyes and they don’t know how to embrace the technology that’s going to force them to either adapt or suffer (I would say “die” but I don’t think NBC is going anywhere for a while). Yes, it would be nice if Apple allowed them to jack the prices for their shows, but in their quest to get more, NBC is going to come out with much less.

NBC. Apple. Come back to the table, renew the existing contract and be smart about this so we can all end up winners. Especially me, since I want to be able to legally download new episodes of The Office.

Tags: Internet, stupid, television //