Thursday, September 20, 2007

Network TV commits sepuku - Fake Steve Jobs gloats

NBC and ABC can't help themselves. It's like watching a slow motion multi-train wreck. Forbes' "Fake Steve Jobs" provides the pithiest summary...
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: We're thrilled about this NBC download service:

... NBC is making a big deal of saying that the downloads will be free. Free! Free! Did you hear me? Not 99 cents like that greedy bastard Jobso, but FREE! Well they made sure the word 'free' would get into all the headlines but when you read the stories a little more closely you find the warts. Like, the commercials will be embedded into the shows and you won't be able to skip over them. Like, you'll only be able to download to a Windows PC. Like, they'll only be free for seven days after broadcast. Then they dissolve. If you want to get them later, you'll have to pay. How much? Um, ah, mwah mwah oh did we mention that they're free for the first seven days?

Oh, and if you want shows from ABC, you can go to AOL. (And yes, heads are rolling at Disney over that deal. More on that later.) Money quote from the story about the ABC-AOL deal: 'The consumer is probably becoming confused. He will need to go to AOL to watch ABC. CBS programming is on the iPod. NBC will be doing direct downloads from its own website. NBC and News Corp (NWS) are starting a joint online venture called Hulu.' So, fair enough. Bring on the big media cluster fuck. Roll out all the different systems that don't work together. Bring on all the different kinds of software...
Wow. The demographic that wants to watch commercial infested television on a Windows PC must be absolutely HUGE ...

[Caveat: I get hives when I think of watching commercial TV, so you may assume my opinions on this topic are particularly ill-informed.]

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