Welcome to Zuckerland (Ongoing Coverage)

September 01st, 2007 at 6:00am • Posted in Apple, Media I Like • Tagged nbc, apple, itunes, zuckerland

In case you hadn't heard, the executives at NBC think they're freaking geniuses. They've just figured out the secret to saving the company. It involves doing good business in a fantasy world that only exists in NBC head Jeff Zucker's mind. Inside sources tell me that Jeff privately calls this realm Zuckerland.

In Zuckerland, Apple is a big, bad, bully, demanding so much of the poor, defenseless television networks that working with them no longer makes sense.

In Zuckerland, Rupert Murdoch is the nice guy who's going to help NBC fight the bully, Hulu.com is the next YouTube, and NBC will once again become the premier purveyor of quality television broadcasting, on the backs of such promising hits in the making as "Bee Movie" inspired mini episodes that Entertainment Weekly calls "most promising" among NBC's 2007 fall lineup.

In Zuckerland, customers on iTunes pay $4.99 per episode for NBC shows, which, though it may sound ludicrous at first, actually makes perfect sense within this fantasy world, because in Jeff Zucker's mind, this is war with Apple, and wars cost a lot of money. So he'll need some funding from all those hardcore customers on iTunes for the effort.

Hooray, I am the best CEO in all of Zuckerland

Of course, unfortunately for NBC, Zuckerland is imaginary, and the real world tends to operate on different rules. Rules such as, if you call out Apple wrongly for being a bully, their PR department will bite back, and reveal you for what you are: a greedy son of a bitch. Or, that Rupert Murdoch is happy to 'partner' with NBC on Hulu, but is not pulling Fox shows out of iTunes Store, because iTunes is sending Murdoch nice, fat pay checks every month in exchange for selling his shows. Or, that if you try to gouge your own fans, things tend to get ugly.

Over the past year, I've personally spent over $300 on iTunes Store purchasing NBC shows, including dozens of episodes of The Office, Heroes, and My Name is Earl. $1.99 per episode has felt expensive at times, but on the expensive side of fair, which is a price point I'm not opposed to paying, especially during stretches of high quality television. But apparently that ain't enough for Jeff Zucker.

Part of me wants to write a nice letter to NBC to try to convince them to take this back. But the part of me with brains realizes that the letter would disappear into the Zuckerland post office, and never be seen again. So screw that. NBC has lost a customer here, and said customer has a feeling that things are only going to become uglier from here on out.

Which is a pity, because NBC has some really good, struggling shows, and I doubt this will help. So sign here if you think Zuckerland is a joke.

Update: This one's almost too ludicrous to be true. But remember. In Zuckerland, even the seemingly mundane turns out to be almost depressingly misguided and unfortunate.

As my friend and fellow blogger, Gedeon Maheux, points out, it turns out that Hulu effectively translates to "cease and desist" in Swahili. The sad part is, it's obvious that this is far from a self-deprecating joke, and simply another stunning display of rash and misguided decision making, courtesy NBC. It's funny in the way The Office is funny, except these painfully awkward moments aren't scripted. This is real.

I'm still holding some hope to the theory that this is all a massive publicity stunt and intricately planned, leading towards a finale featuring Zucker comically dancing off stage hauled off by a giant hook, followed by a retraction of everything that NBC has done over the past few days along with a public apology for humor in bad taste. Then we can all clap and pretend that this never happened. But I think I'm being overly optimistic.

Update 2: This is the part where the wrecked car on the side of the road that you've been staring at with morbid fascination while driving slowly past it suddenly explodes, rather unnecessarily. Predictably, NBC is entering damage control mode, but it seems to be a case of too little too late, with some extra bullshit sprinkled in, because, you know, it's the Zuckerland national spice. Below, some key quotes, along with a personal translation that strips out the PR double talk. If you don't want to wade through the BS, what's left is the distinctive mix of paranoia, confusion and fear that is the mark of a corporation that doesn't understand its customers, is backed into a corner, and is too chicken to fess up and apologize.

We never asked to double the wholesale price for our TV shows. In fact, our negotiations were centered on our request for flexibility in wholesale pricing, including the ability to package shows together in ways that could make our content even more attractive for consumers.

We asked Apple nicely to triple the wholesale price, for us. Because, you know, our fans deserve it. Making our shows more expensive makes them feel more valuable you know. And we also wanted to spread the good word about our shows by providing our fans an easy way to download related shows together, because we feel that the whole à la carte model Apple built iTunes around doesn't serve our customers' needs. But the bullies in Cupertino refused. Can't you see?

It is clear that Apple's retail pricing strategy for its iTunes service is designed to drive sales of Apple devices, at the expense of those who create the content that make these devices worth buying.

Sure, we get more per purchase than we do with DVD sales, and sure, we get a bigger share than Apple, but how does that make sense? WE'RE the ones selling Apple's iPods. Can't you see?

In addition, we asked Apple to take concrete steps to protect content from piracy, since it is estimated that the typical iPod contains a significant amount of illegally downloaded material.

The iPod is like, used by everyone. And we're the ones who sold it to everyone, by like, making the TV shows that people watch on them. And most people who use iPods are pirates. And they're watching our shows for free. So all we asked Apple to do was to only allow DRM protected videos to play on iPods, and they refused. Can't you see?!

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