Download and watch NBC shows for free!
By fred | September 20, 2007
It wasn’t so long ago that NBC and Apple fought in front of everyone and eventually divorced. NBC will not renew its contract with Apple, their new series soon to premiere will not be available on iTunes, and after December none of the shows will be available.
Some said it was because Apple did not want to get prices higher, as NBC asked, others replied this had nothing to do with it : NBC wanted to make special “packaging”, grouping episodes and movies together for examples, and more DRM.
Either way, the question no one seemed to care about, the one that really mattered, was : what about the customer??
And iTunes users can stop hoping for them to make up and forget about it, NBC is moving on, leaving iTunes (users) behind. It started announcing that their shows would be available using Amazon.com’s Unbox. The goods ?
- It’s got a more restrictive DRM
- It’s only available to Windows users
- Prices might go up
Oh wait, you didn’t thought the goods were meant to be good for you, did you?
But while NBC’s move might not be thought as the best, I think they’re pretty smart in one way : they realize that more & more people do watch TV online, using other means than, well, watching TV. And they realize that, maybe there’ll always be piracy, but it’s a growing market anyways, with an enormous potential.
Of course they have only money in mind, but it’s still a better move than the more scornful ways over at CBS, because when CBS CEO Les Moonves said “We look at iTunes as much as a promotional vehicle for our shows as a financial vehicle“, what he meant was that money’s good, but they don’t see it as a real alternative to anything, and in the end they might suffer from it…
Anyways. NBC has a different approach to the whole thing, as its executive vice president Vivi Zigler said: “We are acknowledging that now, more than ever, viewers want to be in control of how, when and where they consume their favorite entertainment” .
And they will be offering, starting October, their shows to be downloaded for free via their new NBC Direct. Yes, you read that right : for free.
Of course there’s a catch : episodes are not only ad-supported, by ads you cannot be skipped, but they will expire with a week of the episode’s original air date. Be sure to get that right : a week after it originally aired, not after you downloaded it !
Despite all that, the list of shows is quite impressive, as it includes many hit-shows and new ones, like Heroes, The Office, Life, Bionic Woman, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
At first it will, again, be only available to Windows clients, but NBC says they will provide clients for Mac OS X and portable devices as well. For the future, they also have plans to have a closed P2P network in order to provide content in higher resolution and better quality, and it will include options to pay to download and own or rent shows.
Now is that whole thing a good idea ? I really have doubts.
- Getting ride of iTunes and its millions of users ? Probably not a good idea.
- Trying to create your own P2P network, while there’s already such plans made by more known names (starting with BitTorrent, Inc) ? Again, doesn’t sound like the best idea ever…
Posted in News
Shows: 30 Rock, Bionic Woman, Friday Night Lights, Heroes, Life, The Office
