iTunes differential pricing appears!

$0.99 for one 128kbps encoded song.
Pass the crack-pipe please, cause I need to feel retarded.

by captain_guts (See profile) - December 7, 2005 1:18 PM PST

Note the winking emoticon after "capitalist." New to the internet,
huh?

by trenchcoat (See profile) - December 7, 2005 12:11 PM PST

It does seem odd though that I could buy an entire episode of an ABC show for $2. But that same $2 only gets me snippets of some NBC shows. I would've thought that NBC would be more inclined to match what another network is offering.

Oh well...I'll just sit back and watch and see what CBS offers up. You know they'll offer some shows for download at Apple soon!

by scooterKS (See profile) - December 7, 2005 10:33 AM PST

I havent looked at all the videos on iTunes, just the NBC ones so I dont know if all videos have different pricing or what. But this is just an example of how NBC wants to control what you watch and how you watch it. First they were up in arms about TiVo To Go service for iPods and PSP. Now they are dictating how much people should pay for the videos.

Guess what NBC? I record all your TV shows with my ReplayTV and using DVArchive convert them and watch them on my PSP for FREE!!! I dont need to buy your shows from iTunes so charge all you want. People should just get a Tivo or ReplayTV and stick it to NBC.

(NOTE: NBC does have the best TV shows so I'm not against watching NBC, just dont feel as though I should pay extra for the privilege...with cable TV rates going up networks are already making enough money).

by wroffer (See profile) - December 7, 2005 7:43 AM PST

The other week I saw some strange happenings on the music store. No, it didn't necessarily have to do with individual songs, but what I found was curious none-the-less. I devoted a little website to my findings at http://www.longofest.net/iTunes.html

by longofest (See profile) - December 7, 2005 7:23 AM PST

Do the execs @ Universal/NBC thinks we're a herd of dolts just looking for places to ditch our dollars?
After decades, micropayments are still an unripe business model. However it seems the media dinosaurs have already perfected microservice.
I for one am open to new business & distribution models, but if this is the best they come up with, I'll stick with tivo/slingbox!
Obviously I am not their target audience, since I want something more than mere novelty for my $1.99.

by punterjoe (See profile) - December 7, 2005 5:25 AM PST

I'm not trying to be the typical blogger here. But I must ask, where do you get your information? Apple prefers 1 tier pricing? I must have been asleep that day in marketing. If you can sell more, which apple certainly will be able to, why not? It doesn't confuse us savvy consumers, we buy similar things at different prices all the time. Although I think it’s absurd to purchase free content (TV), I don't see why a person shouldn't try to sell it. This is just another reason why bittorrent will soon take over the world, if it hasn’t already.

And to everyone else who tries to say Apple looses money on their media content, I ask the same question. Where do you get this information? Apple might make the majority of its insane income from hardware sales, but I don't see why they'd loose money on content. Ridiculous.

by cdanblack (See profile) - December 6, 2005 8:46 PM PST

Ok listen, everyone here seems to be anti capitalism and anti tiered pricing. Ok, fine be against tiered pricing. But do you think a Cobalt and a Ferrari should be the same price? The concept is the same. You're saying that you should pay the same amount for different media files (different artists, time in production, etc..). Companies (and artists) can charge what they want, if people don't buy it, they go out of business, that's capitalism. Please, quit complaining because most of you are penny-pinching geeks who pirate material and want everything to be free or dirt cheap. Give me a break.

by reustmd (See profile) - December 6, 2005 6:49 PM PST

Steve Jobs and Apple aren't likely to be the ones asking such a high price for these episodes. NBC is going to call the shots during contract negotiations. They think Conan is worth $9.99 per hour, I'm sure that wasn't Apple's decision. Remember Stevie was against tiered pricing.

by suxxorz (See profile) - December 6, 2005 2:31 PM PST

i dont think you understood correctly...all SONGS are still only 99 cents. Now its beyond me why NBC is charging 2 bucks for 5 something minutes (in the case of Jay Leno show) or 9 bucks for an hour long conan o'brien...now that dont make sense

by crazymalu (See profile) - December 6, 2005 2:24 PM PST