World of Apple

Apple has quietly rolled out ITV television shows onto the UK iTunes Store today. ITV joins the BBC and Channel 4 who joined earlier in the year.

“Enjoy the best in award-winning drama, comedy, entertainment and cult classics from ITV and Granada Ventures,” a note on the iTunes Store says, promising new shows to be added in future.

Shows currently available include: Lewis, Goodnight Mr. Tom, Brideshead Revisited, Cold Feet, Captain Scarlet and The Saint.

“We want to give viewers the opportunity to watch their favourite shows wherever they are. ITV has thousands of hours of classic content in the archive which we are bringing to a whole new audience via iTunes,” stated Dawn Airey, managing director of ITV Global Content.

“Our strategy is to deliver 360 degree value for our content on multiple platforms, and in multiple territories, and our partnership with Apple is a demonstration that we are delivering on that strategy,” Airey added.

George Kliavkoff, NBC’s chief digital officer has mentioned the possibility of NBC returning to iTunes after a nasty break-up late last year.

The chief noted during the Ad:Tech conference that the company would “love” to come back to iTunes but price and piracy points remain an issue. Speaking during the conference Kliavkoff said, “If you look at studies about MP3 players, especially leading MP3 players and what portion of that content is pirated, and think about how that content gets on to that device, it has to go through a gatekeeping piece of software, which would be a convenient place to put some antipiracy measures,” obviously referring to iTunes. He continued, “One of the big issues for NBC is piracy. We are financially harmed every day by piracy. It results in us not being able to invest as much money in the next generation of film and TV products.”

During the on-stage interview the chief said, “We’d love to be on iTunes. It has a great customer experience. We’d love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes,” he said, but wouldn’t comment on any negotiations. “We have film distribution with iTunes so yes, we do talk to Apple,” he said.

Price also appears to be an issue for NBC as Kliavkoff noted, “They can mark up the price and make a profit or use it as a loss leader to get people in the door,”. “It’s really difficult for us to work with any distribution partner who says ‘Here’s the wholesale price and the retail price,’ especially when the price doesn’t reflect the full value of the product.”

He added “The music industry guys would have something to say about how the pricing has affected their product over the last few years.”

Starbucks and Apple today announced “Pick of the Week,” a new program offering coffeehouse customers a chance to discover complimentary new music and music videos each week. Pick of the Week featured artists include a great line-up with Carly Simon, Duffy, Counting Crows, Adele, Sia, Hilary McRae and many more.

Each Tuesday, more than 7,000 Starbucks company-operated locations in the US will stock a new Pick of the Week download card redeemable on the iTunes Store for a complimentary song or music video hand-picked by the Starbucks Entertainment team and iTunes. The first Pick of the Week, available starting today at participating Starbucks locations, is Counting Crows’ new song, “Washington Square.”

“With Pick of the Week, Starbucks will leverage its trusted curatorial voice in music and entertainment through its partnership with iTunes to provide our customers with a world-class digital discovery experience,” said Ken Lombard, president Starbucks Entertainment, in the press release.

“Pick of the Week provides an incredible way for Starbucks customers to discover great new music and videos for free on the iTunes Store,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes, in the press release. “With the world’s largest online catalog of music and video there is truly something for everyone.”

In October 2007, Starbucks and iTunes teamed up to launch Song of the Day, which offered Starbucks customers the opportunity to pick up a new complimentary download hand-picked by Starbucks Entertainment and iTunes each day for a month. Customer response to Song of the Day was unprecedented and resulted in more than 6 million songs downloaded. Realizing that a large audience hungry to discover new music and entertainment content had been tapped, Starbucks and iTunes worked together to create an ongoing version of the program to drive discovery and sales for great artists.

Once Pick of the Week cards are distributed, customers will then have up to 60 days from the date they are available to redeem their complimentary digital entertainment offering on iTunes.

Pick of the Week is the next phase in a partnership between Starbucks and Apple which began with the launch of the Starbucks Entertainment Area within iTunes in October 2006 and the launch of the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store at select Starbucks locations in October of 2007. The iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store at Starbucks lets customers at participating Starbucks use the Wi-Fi network to wirelessly download music onto their iPhone, iPod touch or computer with no Wi-Fi connection fees or hotspot login.

Despite confusion earlier in the day about NPD market share data, Apple has clarified that for the January-February 2008 iTunes was the largest US based music retailer.

“We launched iTunes less than five years ago, and it has now become the number one music retailer in the world,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We are thrilled, and would like to thank all of our customers for helping us reach this incredible milestone.”

Ars Technica reports that some Apple employees recently received an internal email containing an Excel spreadsheet showing Apple as the top music retailer in the US for the month of January 2008.

On the spreadsheet containing data from NPD Apple leads the pack with 19% with Wal-Mart trailing behind with 15%, Best Buy in third with 13 percent and Amazon in fourth with a mere 6%.

It appears that the glory of first place would be temporary as Apple slipped back to second place just a few weeks later. It appears the sudden jump to number 1 one was caused by post Christmas gift-card redemption’s.

Apple even noted themselves via a press release at the end of February that they had assumed second place.

It appears to be only a matter of time before Apple will eventually gain first place for good.

Apple has today announced that it will be selling television shows from some of Germany’s top TV networks on iTunes including ProSieben, Sat.1, ZDF Enterprises, Brainpool and US broadcasters ABC Studios and MTV Networks is now available from the iTunes Store in Germany.

iTunes customers can choose from a wide range of award-winning primetime programming including “Stromberg,” “Tramitz and Friends,” “Switch!,” “Shaolin Wuzang” and “Kaya Yanar-Made In Germany,” as well as the Emmy Award-winning US programs “Lost,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “South Park.”

“iTunes is the world’s most popular online music and TV store with over four billion songs and 125 million TV episodes sold,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We’re off to a great start with over 35 TV shows available on the iTunes Store in Germany.”

Television shows purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store can be viewed on a Mac or PC, iPod nano with video, iPod classic, iPod touch, fifth generation iPod, iPhone or on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. Television shows are priced at €1.99 and €2.49 per episode. Television programming on the iTunes Store in Germany includes favorites such as:

• ProSieben’s Deutscher Comedypreis-winning comedy “Switch!,” “Tramitz and Friends;”
• Sat.1 comedy show “Zack! Comedy nach Maß” and action-drama “GSG9;”
• ZDF Enterprises’ kids animation “Shaolin Wuzang” and documentary “Update 2057 - Unser Leben in der Zukunft;”
• ABC dramas “Lost,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Criminal Minds;”
• MTV Networks hits “South Park,” “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Avatar: The Legend of Aang;” and
• Brainpool’s Deutscher Fernsehpreis-winning comedy programs “Stromberg” and “Dr. Psycho” and comedy program “Kaya Yanar-Made In Germany.”

USA Today reports that Amazon’s MP3 store has moved into second place behind iTunes in digital music sales in the US.

The huge jump in Amazons position comes as consumers seek DRM-free music of which Amazon has a catalogue of 4.5 million compared to iTunes’ 2 million.

No sales figures have been released so it is unsure how close Amazon has got to Apple’s position.

[Update] As pointed out by Peter in the comments, eMusic’s CEO David Pakman has written a blog post pointing out that USA Today’s article lacks serious merit, most notably any figures. The CEO naturally believes that his company that uses a subscription music model sits in second place behind iTunes.

Last week it was reported that Apple had been discretely offering partial refunds and/or credits.

In an email to Season Pass subscribers, Apple has detailed its plan to offer two free download credits for Season Pass subscribers to be used to buy TV shows, music videos, or short films at the iTunes Store. Apple also said it would credit Season Pass holders with the number of unaired episodes.

From: iTunes Store

Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 03:01 PM

To: Name Deleted

Subject: Your Season Pass for Prison Break, Season 3

Dear Name Deleted,

The current season of “Prison Break” has come to a close. Because of the recently concluded writers’ strike there were fewer episodes in this season than were planned by the network at the time of your purchase. I have issued a partial refund in the amount of $16.36 to make up the difference. You will see this credit in three to five business days. If Store Credit was used for this purchase, the credit will be applied to your balance.

I have also granted two free video credits to your account which you can use to purchase any two TV episodes, music videos, or short films on the iTunes Store.

Your video credit balance should display in the upper-right corner of iTunes next to your account name. If it does not, please sign out and sign back in to refresh. The sign out/sign in functions are found under the Store menu of iTunes. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and thank you for being an iTunes customer.

Sincerely,

Jen

iTunes Store Team

REM will play at the Regent Street Apple Store next week as part of the ongoing “Live from London” series.

The performance which will take place on Wednesday 26 March will coincide with the bands album release(iTunes link).

Attendance will be extremely limited - just 450 people will be able to watch the band perform, with attendance limited to chosen fan club members and competition winners.

The performance will be available as a video afterwards on iTunes.

The UK iTunes Store (iTunes link) now has a selection of shows from Channel 4 available.

UK dwellers can now download every series of Channel 4 comedies such as ‘Spaced’, ‘Black Books’ and ‘Peep Show’. In addition, the latest episodes of popular dramas ‘Skins’ and ‘Shameless’ will be available for download the day after transmission. More great content from C4 will be added to iTunes in the near future.