NBC's Universal's Thought Process

Ever since Microsoft agreed to pay some company a 1 buck or so "royalty" for every Zune sold, these greedy media people have had hard ons for getting a piece of Apple's hardware business.

Recently Jeff Zucker said that Apple is “destroyed the music business in terms of pricing” and will invariably do the same to the online video business."

Well first think wrong with this idea is that there was no money in the online "music biz" until Apple got in the "music business" And similarly there was really not an online video biz until the iPod Video came around. Yes there were PMP's before the iPod video of which I own a few, but very few of them were actually hosting paid for content. So basically Apple monetized for both itself and its media suppliers the portable music and video online business. But really that's not what they are thinking about. No, they, like the Mob, want their hands in the end to end part of the business. First we dick the artists, then we dick the consumer. If we can dick the hardware companies too, all the better!

OK They didn't say it like that, rather they said:

“Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money,” Zucker said. “They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing.”

Zune-itis. See that's the real dig here. Oddly enough I don't see where Samsung pays each and every media outlet for the movies and other programming seen on it's screens. Nope. Sony.. well they are in the end-to-end business and their pricing shows it. But understand this, These people are mad because Apple didn't roll over and die in the 90's and they are mad 'cause Apple made the better Walkman. They are also completely blind to the fact that they, the media companies are producing crap and the audience knows it. They will no longer spend their money on CD's with filler songs just to get the one, two or three tracks they want. The record companies killed off the singles market because they wanted to boost album sales. Never mind that oft times those singles were ridiculously priced to begin with. But at least in the pre-iPod days you could argue that one had to produce artwork and produce and actual material product, but with the digital revolution, there is one file. That's it. There is no cost incurred by the media companies to distribute the digital product it is a product with the bare minimal overhead for the media companies. Apple is the one paying for that bandwidth and storage and talent. The media companies get to sit back and say: "Pay me."

It's a Mob mentality. There is no shame.