A more detailed version of Jeff Zucker’s comments that I blogged about prior to this entry was released on a web site and one of Jeff’s comments was:

“We know that Apple has destroyed the music business — in terms of pricing — and if we don’t take control, they’ll do the same thing on the video side.”

Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. I pay 99 cents for a song on iTunes. Usually twelve songs make a CD. That’s a hair shy of $12 if I buy them one song at a time, or $9.99 if I buy the whole album on iTunes at once.

Wait a minute. $9.99 sounds familiar…

Oh, I know! That must be because Amazon charges $9.99 for lots of today’s popular CDs. I just happened to go to the iTunes music store first and clicked on one of the albums in the “New Releases” section of music. Then I looked up that same album on Amazon. Same exact price. I know this is just one example.

So let’s take another one.

Neil Young’s album sells for $10.99 on iTunes Music Store. It’s $11.99 on Amazon. $1 more. Now think about the printing, pressing, packaging, shipping, and manual labor it takes to get the physical CD created and into your hands. What do you think? Is a buck probably a reasonable price for all that? I think it is.

Jeff, your comments indicate to me (and for all I know, others) that you are one of the people who are unwilling to truly accept change. And this type of change is something that has been coming for literally YEARS. Everyone has had YEARS to position themselves for profitability in this new digital business model. You obviously failed, because you’re throwing tantrums and telling lies and working AGAINST consumers (your customers, I might add) and trying desperately to cling to a business model that has become outdated.

Maybe it’s time for Jeff to get a new job. One where there’s a lot less responsibility and a lot fewer key decisions to be made. I know that sounds harsh, but in today’s world – an entertainment company whining about *more* distribution via electronic means and *lower* COGS. Please.

I read some quotes by Jeffrey Zucker, the president and CEO of NBC, regarding their deal to sell TV shows on iTunes and frankly I was just absolutely floored. Is this guy for real? How does someone with his level of short-sightedness rise to such a high position? Two of the things Zucker said, I think, are quite indicative of insanity.

First, Zucker indicated that he was upset that Apple wasn’t sharing the revenues from hardware sales – hardware that people would use to watch shows purchased from the iTunes Music Store. This seems like lunacy to me. Panasonic didn’t have to give some of the money I paid for my TV to NBC (or any other network, for that matter). Sony didn’t have to pay money to any studio when I bought my DVD player. And TiVo doesn’t have to give any of my money to the networks when I record shows and watch them later (skipping through all the commercials). Jeff. What are you smoking?

Second, Zucker said that NBC only made $15 million during the last year of their deal with Apple. Only fifteen MILLION dollars. Zucker followed up saying that he didn’t want to replace “dollars” in the analog world with “pennies” in the digital world. I think he’s just nuts. There WAS no paying digital world to speak of before Apple came along and did what they did with the iTunes Music Store. And it doesn’t even matter that it was Apple that did it. Microsoft could have done it, some third party could have done it – it just doesn’t matter. I would like to point out that this is NEW revenue. There was simply no way for a truly “average Joe” to legally buy an episode of a television show, download it, and watch it on their computer, phone, iPod, or TV. And poor NBC *only* made $15 million from this. On TOP of what they normally make for their shows to air them on broadcast, cable, and satellite.

Zucker: You need to wake up, man. You are shooting yourself in the foot. Actually, with digital distribution going the direction it is, you’re shooting yourself in the chest.

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