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December 07, 2005
Another Shoe Drops: NBC Universal Content now Available on iTunes
The past couple of months have been real exciting inside the world of disruptive broadcasting. Looking back, the new "Broadcast 2.0" space is evolving much quicker than many others would have expected.
While I felt it was just a matter of time before episodes of "Law and Order" would be available for viewing on my video iPod, that time is now. It was great to see that NBC Universal had immediate plans to allow users to download 11 new shows.
The 3 million videos that Apple has already sold since it launched their video iPod in October represents incremental and in some cases "windfall" revenue for their content partners. For example, most record labels wrote off the costs of their music videos (many) years ago, so the success of the video iPod should start to have positive ripple effects in the Apple iTunes/iPod ecosystem.
I expect that going forward we will be seeing more iPod product placements as elements of content in some of the shows whose episodes are available on iTunes. While I am waiting to see how Dick Wolf will weave in an iPod as a protagonist in a future episode of "Law and Order", a possible foreshadowing of this happened during last night's episode of "The Office" which the Video iPod played a role. While watching the episode, by no coincidence, viewers were exposed to some soft "banner ads", announcing the immediate availability of episodes of the "The Office" on iTunes.
As more compelling video content becomes available for the iPod, I am now waiting for Apple to improve the battery life of the video iPod so that I don't lose my picture during long plane flights.
Tags: ipod, NBC, Law and Order, broadcast 2.0, itunes
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Posted by jeff on December 7, 2005 07:59 AM | Permalink
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Comments
FYI, here's the online ad that Apple's using to promote this "Law & Order" content on iTunes:
Posted by: adverlicious at January 25, 2006 11:59 AM
CBS already did that. A recent episode of "CSI Miami" had an extra "web-only" scene you could watch by going to their web site. In order to see it, you had to watch a Humvee commercial. It also ended with one, but I expect most people stopped it at that point. I did not as I haven't seen a Humvee in over 9 years and the commercial was funny.
As for the video iPod, IMHO it needs to have an external battery. I think the future of hand helds is a small internal battery with an optional clip on larger battery. While you watch with the large battery, the internal one charges so that you can continue to watch/listen/play while you swap batteries.
Geoff.
Posted by: Geoff Mendelson at December 7, 2005 05:50 PM
Personally, I believe that one version or other of Law and Order will be available anywhere, anytime, on any device, potentially burned on a RFID chip and inserted into children at birth.
Posted by: Patrick at December 7, 2005 04:32 PM
Talk about your product placements! On last week's CSI:NY one of the character's received a phone call form his girlfriend and the ringtone was the new single by ColdPlay, "Talk"! Not only that, but the character actually says it is ColdPlay to his companion...and then CBS cut to a commercial for that precise ringtone! Then, to top it all off, the actual ColdPlay song was later played over one of those annoying CSI time-passing-while-boring-stuff-is-happening montage scenes!
Billboard magazine reports that it was all "part of a cross-promotional agreement between CBS and Capitol Records", so we aren't talking creative-license here.
Oh, and here is another one for you "24" fans out there. The just-released DVD set of 24 Season 4 came out yesterday, complete with an exclusive 11-minute preview of the upcoming Season 5. The preview -- which included a key between-seasons scene that will not be broadcast when Season 5 begins airing in January -- starts with a the announcement that it is sponsored by Toyota...and then, funny enough, both major characters show up driving -- you guessed it -- Toyota! Again, for the fans out there...Jack was driving a brand-spanking new Camry and Chloe was -- of course -- behind the wheel of a shiny Prius.
So what is next? King Kong lifting and throwing a Humvee? "Don't throw it, Kong! I'll buy it!"
;-)
Posted by: KČ at December 7, 2005 01:21 PM