I can see how giving episodes away free will make them more money than selling the episodes on iTunes.

Oh wait, no I can't.

Wow, someone just needs to crack this DRM and we're golden.

There will likely be commercials in the free download versions, so I'm sure that some money will still change hands.

But this is more about NBC having more control over their content, and allowing them to build an on-line business model with multiple price points.

I think it's an excellent move. iPods will eventually give way to something else, so subsuming your content to iTunes doesn't make long-term sense.

Someone at NBC finally woke up and said: Hulu? WTF?

I'm of the opinion that if there's DRM on it, then it's not really "free".

You have a week to download or you have a week to watch after download before the file self-destructs?

Will they contain ads?

NBC already allows streaming of some shows from their website, but they contain a couple 30 second ads.

This is a smart short-term and long-term move by NBC.

Short term, their corporate model is based on commercials, and the iTunes store is eliminating that. (Yes, they get bucks for selling the show, but they are decreasing the viewership for their sponsors, which ultimately undercuts how they do business.)

Long term, giving Apple control over the content is a mistake since no one knows what the next method of watching their shows will be. This puts them back in the drivers seat of control and can allow them to do whatever they want with it.

Overall, there appears to be a growing feeling that having content on the iTunes music store is not a fantastic idea since the only one making big bucks on this deal is Apple. Until Apple allows the content providers the freedom to control how, when, and where that content is distributed, it is highly likely that more and more of them will be leaving iTunes.

@ GETGREG

From what I've heard, it will be the same thing as the streaming (so yes commercials), except that you download the episode instead of streaming. Helps prevent bandwidth skips/pauses.

@scrag: I think that's silly.

I have less qualms with being given a DRM file for free, as opposed to paying for DRM things like itunes.

I guarantee the only two options on the proprietary player will be "play" and "pause", meaning the commercials will have to be viewed in real time. I'd rather pay the iTunes premium for commercial free content myself.

This just in: NBC halts sales of DVD box sets of their popular TV shows, as providing ad free content on disc decreases viewership of its sponsors, which ultimately undercuts how it does business.

Great! Soon the hackers will crack their DRM for all of use to use their P2P to freely distribute their shows. Oh the irony!

If they keep the quality up, and they don't load the thing down with ads, then I can see this replacing my RSS torrent setup, at least for NBC shows.

Thanks, NBC for screwing over the many people that were once willing to pay for your content via iTunes. Now, like every other Mac user, I've been screwed over again 'cause you don't support the Mac OS with your most recent bad idea.

Anyone know if this applies to NBC-owned cable channels such as Sci-Fi? It'd be sweet to be able to watch BSG online!

So no mac compatability, no HD, and no ability to play it on anything other than a computer. In other words: pretty damn useless right now.

At least on iTunes I could get stuff on my iPod and TV effortlessly. 1 step sideways, 2 steps back.

Any word if this will work outside the States? If not, a big double screw to the whole venture. (I'm also a Machead.)

Err...doesn't the fact that it expires in a week mean that it DOES use DRM?

10 bucks says that they use Janus for the Windows downloads, which is infinitely easier to crack than Apple's FairPlay.

Let me see if I have this straight: not only are they giving up the money they would have gotten from selling it on iTunes, they're also making it easier for users to pirate and and therefore redistribute the shows. That makes no sense-oh wait, we're talking about a major media corporation. Silly me, forgetting that they never bothered to learn how the internet works.

Oh well, free Heroes episodes for me I guess. It's really a shame I can't pay for them, like I did last season. Oh, wait, no it isn't. ;)

I agree this is a smart move for NBC. Many consumers will be perfectly happy to watch commercials like they do on TV provided it is free. Some people that currently pay for iTunes episodes may be willing to save the money to watch the commercials and have freedom of when to view the episode (within the week before it expires).

For the tech-savvy and the commercial or DRM haters we will continue to seek alternate modes of content and NBC will be neither better nor worse off because of their decision to provide free on-line commercial embedded content.

Their decision to pull from iTunes sucks for commercial haters and International viewers willing to pay per episode but you can't fault them for wanting to control their content and leverage on and off-line viewership to improve their existing but dwindling advertising revenues even if we know they will never be able to fight the advances of technical distribution improvements in the long term since eventually the majority of consumers will become savvy to those methods as well.

1. As quite a few companies have said in the past (NY Times most recently), subscription and pay-per-download brings in LESS revenue for the content-provider than they would make off of ad sales. I'm not saying I agree with NBC taking their shows off of iTunes (in fact, I don't), but allowing free, ad-supported downloads brings in far more cash. It would've been better for them to allow the free downloads AND keep the shows on iTunes.

2. Why are so many people ripping on the fact that it is DRMed? Don't you understand that THIS is an example of DRM actually doing the customer something good? It's ludicrous to think that NBC should just put their shows out there for free without protecting it somehow. Now, all they ned to do is bring on the Mac support and I'm golden.

So they are killing the income of the people who actually make the content they are giving away for free and hurting their own corporate profit margin just for some childish game with apple?

I love how they say the file expires in a week after also saying "we are acknowledging that now, more than ever, viewers want to be in control of how, when and where they consumer their favorite entertainment".

So to sum up:
a) shows will not be free (after the beta)
b) shows will have ads you cannot skip
c) shows will expire after a week

That sounds like a pretty crappy deal to me. Maybe the networks could figure out a way to bring all their shows together and offer them as a monthly, all-you-can-eat subscription, this might work. But I'm not paying NBC and ABC and Fox separately for separate shows.

Wow. Incredibly interesting move, considering they were pressuring Apple to increase prices on their iStore content; after applying pressure on Apple, knowing Apple would resist, they're launching NBCDirect. In other words, the choices should have been clear to begin with--concede to our demands while we are partners (you provide market access, we provide highly coveted content) or hello, we are now your worst enemy. This strategy is going to open up the digital video entertainment "market" by providing current "customers" new options--most customers want to be served. that's why p2p was so successful, because it allowed software to serve users; unfortunately, that was too easy to shut down, and track users. Now, corporations (owners of content) are providing their own service centers, seemingly free, yet the real cost, and thus the real gain, is control.

I only wish that networks like NBC and TBS would allow Canadians to download episodes from their websites instead of being blocked. We get the same stations, and in some cases, have to pay extra for the superstations like TBS...ahhh well.

When will these idiots realize most of us don't want to watch TV shows on our desktop computers? I didn't spend good money on a home entertainment system and nice furniture so I could watch shows on my desktop computer sitting in my office chair (no, I can't run a cable from my computer to my TV, nor do I want to).

I was all set to pick up an AppleTV this year and get my favorite shows on iTunes. But apparently NBC doesn't want my money. I'll get BSG from Netflix next year, and other than that, I'm NBC-free.

NBC has been dumped from my entertainment life. Feel free to join me.