So, on my way to work, I was listening to the latest Mac Break Weekly, and again the topic of NBC and iTunes came up. For those whom don’t know last year NBC took down all of their shows from iTunes citing that the copy protection isn’t strong enough. Then they started their own online service, Hulu.com to show their wares. The difference is that on iTunes you pay once, $1.99, and on Hulu you get the media for free. On iTunes you can watch it anywhere, on anything. On Hulu, only there, in your browser, with all the ads put into the show. Now NBC says they will come back if Apple fixes their copy protection. The thing they really want is to be paid the $1.99 every time you watch the show, and for every device you want to watch it on. For example, if I watch it on my Notebook, pay the $1.99. If I want to watch it on my iPhone, $1.99, my media center, $1.99. They think they can get away with that because the advertisers do pay them for every time you watch it. They don’t understand that those days are ending. We, the consumers are fighting back that model. How many people Tivo their TV viewing and skip the commercials when watching back now? I rarely watch live TV, I will wait an extra half hour so that I can watch and skip thru the ads. If they want to keep ads, product placement is the way to go now. Have House drink a Coke, have Denny Crane eat a Whopper and so on. Yes we don’t have way to know their specials anymore, but do we really care? Local TV, reruns can all show their ads like usual. Then NBC can charge Coke and Burger King every time the episode is shown. NBC says they will put these $1.99 episodes up on the internet, and people can download these for free, pirate them. Well someone has to explain to them that there are plenty of programs that will rip episode from their flash players, and thus they can still do that, only now they only got the pennies(if that), from the advertisers, instead of the $1.99 from iTunes, and they can still pirate them. Surprise.

Merlin Mann on the episode was talking about how the NBC(Big Media) model is dead. The world is now digital, and NBC can’t turn it back, no matter how much they want to, todays kids expect all of these things for free now, they won’t pay, its that simple. My generation will if we can, but if you take that away we will find another way to get our content. I now I look at iTunes first, and then go another route. NBC has taken that away. I would use Hulu, but many of the times I want to sit at my computer and watch a show, I don’t have that internet connection, so I simply can’t. If I buy it I can watch it at my convenience. So I have to find my own way. Again, todays kids go the other way first, and hulu only reinforces that model. Andy Ihnatko understands, but thinks that NBC is too big with too many people that depend on that money to pay their mortgages, and thus can’t really change. My feeling is that many of the big media companies have been gouging their consumers for so long they think that they are entitled to that money now. For example, for many years when CDs were new the record companies were paying close to $5(very conservative estimate) for making a CD, and selling them for $16 to $20. They would say that next year they would drop the prices to get closer in line with the realities of cost, but right now not many people have CD players so we have to have the prices high to make a profit. Ok, but next year never came, but their cost kept dropping. Hmmm. Guess what the execs at those companies salaries were growing at a much higher rate than the average. Hmmm. Now they want their increases to stay the same and yet the consumers have less money. Does that work? No. They fact is they have to change. The music is out there. The TV is out there. Understand that. Its time to change your model. I think that a major problem is the executive salaries are highly inflated and you have gotten away with it too long, so you think they are actually the value of the service. This is not just the media companies that have this issue, its really all major industries in the US, hey kids the vast majority of the countries can’t carry your colossal weight anymore, you are going to have to cut back, you are the fat that needs to be trimmed. You are not as valuable as you think. In most cases if you took all of the higher echelon out the companies would run the same or better. Think about that, talking about turning the wheel doesn’t turn it, the people pushing that gear do.