Sometimes, it's worth announcing something just for the sake of announcing something... apparently. Following on the heels of the NBC/iTunes kerfuffle, which Brad talked about here, NewsCorp has announced that they won't be pulling their videos off of iTunes. In other news, Dogs have announced that they are indeed going to keep chasing Cats.It does seem rather silly to announce that you are not going to do something, but if you head over to Reuters to read the story, there is another interesting little bit in there.
NewsCorp's president and CEO, Peter Chernin, is quoted as saying "Right now we have a perfectly good relationship with Apple." However, he goes on to add, "...we're the ones who should determine what the fair price for our product is, not Apple."
That sounds to me like the beginnings of another variable pricing scheme. And the pessimist in the back of my melon has convinced me that Peter and his pals aren't determined to get control of iTunes pricing so they can lower prices. So this time, I'm siding with the Steve.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-12-2007 @ 2:29PM
BC said...
The fair price that Fox et al. should determine is what they want Apple to pay them; what Apple wants to charge consumers is up to Apple--if they want to lose money for a time in order to promote more profitable iPod sales, that's their affair.
Unfortunately, a Supreme Court decision earlier this year established that there are permissable circumstances for wholesalers to dictate minimum retail prices to retailers. Now, Apple itself has always maintained Minimum Advertised Prices for its products, but this is a different system that depends on voluntary enforcement backed by greater benefits from Apple to retailers who agree to follow the policy. Now it's legal to penalize retailers who sell for less than the manufacturer directs them to--ostensibly, this "protects" retailers who invest in supporting customers against predatory low-service competition. But it also protects inefficient retailers from more efficient competitors.
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