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1.  

   We nerds are junkies..

   

   Jimi Spier, Oct 14th, 2005 @ 10:56pm

   
   

   We geeks are like any crackhead out there. If we can't get our fix for a cheap price, we'll just get it for free by stealing it.. Disney, ABC, etc. its up to you whether or not you want to make any profit at all. I can go either way on the issue, sell it for cheap or I'll get it for free, the ball is in your court..

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2.  

   No Subject Given

   

   Anonymous Coward, Oct 15th, 2005 @ 2:42am

   
   

   Perhaps that was the aim of Apple all along - to show what consumers are willing to pay for content.

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3.  

   Re: No Subject Given

   

   tvnetdude, Oct 15th, 2005 @ 4:54am

   
   

   Paying for content is everyone's goal. If they could, they would eliminate terrestrial TV and radio.
   
   If this ever happens, which direction do you think prices in an unregulated industry will go up or down?

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4.  

   Re: Heinz Baked Beans

   

   Deva, Oct 15th, 2005 @ 7:06am

   
   

   Paid content might make a profit for the distributors, but ad money, which is probably much more, will always be more important to them, I think. Paying for content seems to be a pretty shallow goal, considering the benefits of having masses of people directed to purchase things. We geeks have been away from ads for too long :)
   
   Also, most people like to have their content fed to them, instead of clicking around for it and giving their credit card numbers to the magical compooter machine, so I don't think we should be taking the geek viewpoint too seriously anyway - This kind of content is targeted towards completely different audiences

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5.  

   No Subject Given

   

   JosephH, Oct 15th, 2005 @ 9:25am

   
   

   What? How do you know that Apple wouldn't make money if the writers, actors and directors got some of it? Apple fanboy much?

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6.  

   That would be just right!

   

   Aleks Y., Oct 15th, 2005 @ 10:57am

   
   

   Ofcourse $1.99 per show isn't that bad if you're rich and don't know where else to get it for free or don't have the time to tape it from TV. My boss downloads $.99 a song from Itunes, simply because he doesn't know that his CD collection can be turned into mp3 galore within 3 or 4 hours. $1.99 a show isn't a bad idea, especially if you're into those shows and you really hate to sit enfront of tv and watch it, you can just watch it on the train. Great stuff. But nevertheless, once everyone who was watching those shows on tv starts downloading them - there goes the neighborhood. Kiss $1.99 goodbye.

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7.  

   Re: No Subject Given

   

   Jason SJOBECK, Oct 15th, 2005 @ 7:03pm

   
   

   Never happen. They know that they can reach a multiple more people by giving the terrestial broadcast away. If they took it away, their ad' revenue would disappear & they would be done.

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8.  

   Do the math, not so bad

   

   harry, Oct 15th, 2005 @ 10:39pm

   
   

   The Math is even better..
   
   Most TV ads cost $10 to $20 per 1000 viewers. Superbowl ads are cheaper, some top top show much more. Let's use $20 as the example here.
   
   That means each ad shown to the total # of viewers as estimated by Neilson. 5 people @ one house watching would count 5 times. We will assume since the Ipod is a personal device, one viewer.
   
   That means each ad costs 2 cents ($20 / 1000). Assuming there are 40 ads per show, you get 80 cents per show in ad income. So for $1.99 there is plenty of room to pay all the actors and everyone else all of their normal fees. [The point is that the amount of $$ per show generated PER viewer is small and easily covered by Apple's fee!]
   
   A 1/2 hour show would have less than 40 ads (typically ads can be 60 sec, 30 secs, 20 sec and even 5; i'm just using average prices. A 20 sec ad costs less than a 60 second one, of course.)

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9.  

   Re: Do the math, not so bad

   

   joe, Oct 16th, 2005 @ 3:31pm

   
   

   FALSE
   Superbowl ads are more expensive.

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10.  

    Re: Do the math, not so bad

    

    Anonymous Coward, Oct 16th, 2005 @ 4:46pm

    
    

    No, you are wrong. They are less expensive.
    
    Its less because you are payting a million dollars for 1 30 secd spot that has VASTLY more viewers than the average television show. It ends up being somewhere around $10-$15 per thousand ather than $15-$20

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11.  

    Income-to-quality will drive price

    

    DMA, Oct 16th, 2005 @ 5:29pm

    
    

    I think the demand will boil down to a quality/price ratio, if the ad revenue allows the quality to create demand, ad-driven product will survive. If the pay-per model can produce the revenue to produce acceptable quality to produce more demand than the ad-driven product, it will win. I think assuming the model in and of itself will drive demand is short-sighted, the product-to-price acceptance will drive demand, and the model that produces the acceptable ratio will survive.

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12.  

    Re: Do the math, not so bad

    

    anonymoustroll, Oct 16th, 2005 @ 5:33pm

    
    

    Uh, actually if you look at it from an "area under the curve" prospective, Superbole ads are more expensive. Most ad campaigns require reptition to be effective. It's a multi-dimensional, stochastic psychology problem, so just about any "answer" can be defined as correct

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13.  

    anonymous coward

    

    Anonymous Coward, Oct 16th, 2005 @ 8:19pm

    
    

    exactly. this is just an experiment. insofar as the actors go, they may be surprised to know that the producers are selling DVD's of their shows too! Same principle, just another format. And the value of .h264 at 320x240 has got to be much lower than 1080i DVD.

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14.  

    Re: Do the math, not so bad

    

    MadJo (profile), Oct 17th, 2005 @ 12:53am

    
    

    But would you be willing to pay $1.99 for an ad-ridden episode of whatever program on your iPod? :)

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15.  

    Newspapers give away DVDs

    

    Pete Austin, Oct 17th, 2005 @ 2:23am

    
    

    ...with the UK Sunday editions. A paper costs £1-£2 ($1-$2 allowing for cheaper American prices) so I think this shows the fair price for DVDs. At $1.99 in low resolution with DRM, Apple sounds a bit expensive.

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16.  

    Re: Do the math, not so bad

    

    richard, Oct 17th, 2005 @ 10:12am

    
    

    The episodes on iTunes right now are commercial free.

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17.  

    I thought they already got paid.

    

    crystalattice, Oct 17th, 2005 @ 11:59am

    
    

    Don't all those people already get royalties based on reruns and other broadcasts? Then they should already be getting the money for these shows. If Apple is paying for the rights to use the programs in iTunes, then ABC et al. are getting their fair share; it's up then up to ABC to pay the royalties out of the money they've already received. Apple shouldn't be bothered by the unions and guilds since it's not their responsiblity.

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18.  

    Re: Re: Do the math, not so bad

    

    Tam, Oct 11th, 2006 @ 10:43pm

    
    

    Could you explain stochastic psychology to me? I've just come across it, and i'm interested.... I can't find much on the internet outside of math and computational analysis... so you're it! Tell me what it's all about....

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