NBC, CBS Serve 99 Cents Worth of Shows
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Written By Reprise Media | November 8, 2005 | Share This
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Not to be outdone by ABC’s recent deal with iTunes, NBC and CBS have announced they’ll be selling on-demand versions of their shows for 99 cents apiece in two separate deals announced late yesterday.
CBS will retain the commercials content in the episodes offered up for sale, but NBC will leave them out, much like ABC is doing with iTunes.
Unfortunately availability of the shows will be limited and you won’t be able download them to your computer - you have to go through a pay-per-view system. According to this piece in Beta News there are some more fundamental differences:
“Compared to the iTMS model, where users purchase the programs they want, CBS and NBC are following a model more like Napster, where users rent the programming. ABC and Disney are betting that viewers would rather purchase and keep the programs they want, while CBS and NBC are betting that viewers will prefer pay-per-view programming.”
The fact that CBS is keeping the commercials seems kind of weird to me - if I’m going to pay for something I can watch for free it better not have any commercials.
Stories like these make it feel like we’re still in the shakeup stage - no standardization of players, systems and standards. It’ll be interesting to see what the traditional TV model gives way to next.
Topics: Media Convergence |