TV networks continue to resist iTunes price cuts

Digital media is showing the current greed and ignorance of publishing companies- be it music, videos, games or eBooks. They just haven't figured it out yet.

Most publishers seem to believe they do not need to reduce prices on older digital material that does not sell- a practice that retail outlets constantly do on physical media. If it is a new TV series, charge the full retail- but if the series is 2 years old, drop the price so other people may buy as an impulse buy.

In this market with a plethora of choices to consume media, why would I ever consider paying $40 for a series that is $20 on DVD at Amazon (or sometimes less as a closeout in retail stores)- and why even buy it when I can get it via NetFlix queue- or for free via Hulu?

At $1/episode, I might actually consider buying a TV series from iTunes as it would be easier than ripping a DVD and converting it to MP4 format.

Remember you can't strictly compare reruns and DVR to this - you'd have to include your cable fees. You also can't always compare DVD releases, because they have to be released after the airing of the entire season is over... so you gotta pay something extra for getting it sooner.

Plus the economies of scale always play into DVDs. House is cheap in most places, but something like Quantum Leap (or Monk) is not.

I can see charging premium prices for first run seasons, but the prices should definitely drop over time! Especially for those SD transfers of old shows. And especially because you can only play the files on a small selection of devices.

Actually, the numbers are a bit false in perspective.

TV-shows and Movies aren't available in Europe, while songs can be purchased in every country where an iTunes-store is available.

"Meanwhile, though TV shows have been available for download in the iTunes Store since 2005, only 375 million shows have been downloaded in that time -- compared to nearly 9.5 billion songs downloaded over the same period. With a reported 125 million iTunes Store accounts, that equates to an average of 76 song downloads per customer compared to a paltry 3 TV episodes downloaded."

This is not a relevant number, though, as a large part of the 125 million do not have access to TV shows.

It's not really fair to compare iTunes TV downloads to TV series DVDs for one main reason: time. If I want to buy season 6 of The Office on DVD, I have to wait until the season is done and DVDs are in production. Whereas on iTunes I can buy shows within 24 hours of airing. I'm not suggesting that this justifies the $1.99 price tag, but it does add a level of desirability for the "gotta have it now" generation.

Hulu also isn't a fair comparison. I have zero desire to watch my favorite shows in low resolution on my laptop screen, not to mention the plethora of unfastforwardable (yes, that's a technical term) commercials. I'll gladly pay for the convenience of commercial-free + better quality.

I gave up cable altogether in exchange for my Apple TV. I don't watch too many shows (4-5 tops) so even at $1.99 per episode it made sense for me. But if Apple could introduce a vaporware subscription model, it would be a no brainer for a lot of families. This is the next step Apple has to make in order to really make a dent in the cable wall.

I have bought quite a few of the olympic events just because they are only 99 cents, I wouldn't have shelled out 1.99 though, so it seems to me that 99 cents is better than zero cents...

I doubt there will be any trickle down at all. This should be looked at by the networks as additional income, not replacing their traditional revenue streams... as these shows are still on commercial networks. If they want people to watch these programs via digital downloads, then price it to sell and increase the viewer base then the commercial sales can reflect that additional viewership.

Look what happened with music sales when the record companies got greedy and raised prices.... purchases dropped off dramatically. So since the cost of having it on iTunes does not change whether they sell one episode or millions of episodes, sell as many as you can at a lower cost, thus making more money.

At least pricing is a little more reasonable for some shows here in Canada. On one hand you have stuff like The Office for $50 for a season that's $35-40 on DVD. But then there's some shows like Monk that's $30 from iTunes but $50+ on DVD. And then there's British comedies - I could pick up individual series of Red Dwarf on DVD for about $30 each, or from iTunes for $12.

At least from iTunes there is consistency. The season price is always based on the number of episodes. DVDs seem to be whatever the content producer feels they can charge for it - and British shows especially seem to have a premium because it's imported. At least most Anime pricing is getting more reasonable now.

99¢ per episode is much closer to what you pay when you buy these shows on DVD though that is often at a price below the MSRP. You can get Heroes season one at Amazon for $20.49 new (Marketplace price Amazon charges the $49.99 MSRP itself) or via iTunes for $42.99. The iTunes price is better than MSRP but it does not compete with the actual market price.

The HD pricing is just as bad. Heroes season one on Blu-ray is $48.49 (Amazon price) but through iTunes it will run you $64.99.

The digital prices should be cheaper than the market prices of the physical media. If shows are released on iTunes at $1.99 at around their original broadcast date I have no problems with that but prices need to be readjusted over time to reflect the prices of the physical versions since digital versions are cheaper to produce and have no resale value and the money they are making on this content is just extra money on top of their main revenue stream which is still advertising (though I do wonder if a cult hit like Firefly would be able to make money as a digital/direct-to-video release yet).

99 cents for a tv show is high. The value an episode of a tv show provides is much lower than a song. I actually checked, and songs i really love are played an average of 25 times! for some reason, thats my saturation point :) tv shows I only watched once. i think if they priced tv shows at 49 cents, or 59 cents, they would get so many viewers that are either getting it elsewhere for free (hulu, tvgorge) or just won't bother. i'm also amazed at how palatable low-fi shows are, i don't see the point of paying extra for HD.