NBC to Launch DRM-Addled Video Site
After getting dumped by iTunes, NBC decides to launch a site where you can download their show episodes for free right after TV broadcast. The service, dubbed “NBC Direct”, beta-tests in October.
Sounds great, right? It does until you hear the caveats. You can only watch the downloads on one Windows PC. The episodes self-destruct after seven days. If you thought the BBC’s iPlayer DRM was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Hold on. Wasn’t NBC supposed to be in an online video joint video venture with Fox? Does their right hand not know what their left is doing? Have these people no concept of brand consolidation? Is NBC trading bloated joint venture lameness for restrictive DRM lameness, or are they shooting for both forms of lameness? Are they ruining their joint venture with Fox before it even starts? Now I’m confused…
1 opinion for NBC to Launch DRM-Addled Video Site
Jim Hassinger
Sep 21, 2007 at 2:14 pm
The networks used to have this much power, back when there were only three of them, and cable was just what you got to pull in distant stations without ghosting. The world is changed completely since then.
Broadcast is, in fact, dead. Cable is right behind them. Demand programming is the new reality. Right at this moment, I’m downloading a free promo episode of a new FOX show from iTunes. I can keep it forever if I like.
Networks have the money to produce programming that people want to see. Broadcast is just “first run,” and publicity. If they dropped the price to $1.00 for SDTV, $2.00 for 1080p, people would buy that by the millions, and piracy would drop off a great deal. But no, NBC thinks it still has the privileges and power it had in 1954. The contempt that “melt-in-your-mouth” DRM shows both for users and for their own product is proof that it will never take off. They just don’t get it.
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