Apple Inc. and video content provider NBC Universal are working to bury the hatchet, according to reports, which suggest that it's only a matter of time before the network's catalog of television programming returns to the digital shelves of the iTunes Store.
âWell, I guess your story looks pretty dumb,â Jobs told Burrows, referring to a BusinessWeek story earlier this month that suggested Apple would probably not be able to get Universal and Sony to support its new movie rental service, which it eventually did.
While Jobs agreed that those two studios werenât the first to arrive at the bargaining table, he claims there were no great obstacles to overcome once they sat down, and that there was no pressure to get the deals inked ahead of last week's Macworld Expo.
âWeâll put it back together on the TV thing," Jobs added. "Everybody lost [when NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker pulled his content off iTunes]. "But NBC is a great company, and Apple is a great company,â neither of which make a habit of ignoring their customersâ desires, he said.
âFortunately,â Jobs half-joked, âthere was a writersâ strike, so it didnât matter as much as it might have.â
Tempers between the two firms flared last fall after NBC decided not to renew its iTunes distribution contract with Apple, arguing that the iPod maker was unreasonably opposed to experimenting with more flexible pricing structures for TV show downloads.
The dispute culminated in December when Zucker used a breakfast hosted by Syracuseâs Newhouse School of Communications to urge colleagues into taking a stand against iTunes, charging that the service was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to set profitable rates for their content online.
"We know that Apple has destroyed the music business — in terms of pricing — and if we donât take control, theyâll do the same thing on the video side," he said.
But in speaking to the Financial Times this week, Zucker too appears to have had a sudden change of heart.
"Weâve said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple," he said. âWeâre great fans of Steve Jobs.â
66 Comments
Ha ha - what a loser zucker is. Steve should do the same thing he did to Disney, refuse to deal until the ass gets canned from NBC.
Yeah. Tell me that Zucker's ass isn't on the line with NBC.
As usual, business as usual.
Are you kidding me? Apple is looking after the customer the same time it's making a profit. NBC has always been the "black sheep" that nobody likes. Apple is a business and what do businesses do? Oh, that's right... make money and then in turn spend some of that money on a business model that actually works unlike NBC's. Sure people have choices but when nobody know of your services (NBC) why fight the fight when you can join a winning team! Apple rules and that's all there is to it...
Mr.Scott
Steve should do the same thing he did to Disney, refuse to deal until the ass gets canned from NBC.
I thought it was Eisner that refused to work with Jobs, not the other way around.If this were a Japanese company Zucker, or some other fall guy, would have stepped down so the company could save face. Usually I'm against such prescribed spectacles but in this case I think Zucker should definitely step down.
If they wanted to start their own service they should never have killed one revenue stream to do so. Especially sense one was ad-based that could be watch on a computer and the other was pay-based and could be watched on iDevices.