Thursday, September 2, 2010

i-Downloads' New Bidding

Steve Jobs has come up with a new plan: To offer television shows at 99 cents (already lower than the prices offered by i-Tunes). Although studio's are naturally squeamish - The reason? Ever since the downloading of music for such a low price, the great days of the early 90's were gone, when a CD could be priced tagged to actually make the studio money. Granted the legit but cheap downloads of today were a reaction to pirating. So granted that it was a a relatively good idea, the point is that DVD box set sales that are planned for release nearly half a year after the show's respective season ends, many now suffer a marketing plan. Also, many people may no longer be psychologically willing to buy a whole season of a particular show because of the cheaper price online, and the ability to perhaps buy only the episodes they want like songs. Most people of course if they like a show are willing to fork out for every episode because they have to have it. The point here is, can we as an audience and customer agree to placing a price for our harsh economic times but also be willing to look down on illegal downloads. Many people may not realize that downloading TV Shows like music hurts people involved. I did a post about SAG the Screen Actors Guild earlier. One of the ways these actors make bread is through the residual sales of DVD's. So I wonder what their take on this is? My last post was about the decline of physical video rental outlets, and taking it in, is this just a sign of the times, or a way for some people to make easy money on other people's hard work or perhaps a negotiated response to illegal downloaders in the same way it worked for music? Download and stream television, who would have thunk it?

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