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Ticketmaster and iTunes launch ticket + music promo

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new media newsticketing company Ticketmaster and online music store iTunes Store have expanded their music + tickets offerings by launching a special dollar-off discount applied to every digital album sold on Ticketmaster and fulfilled via the iTunes Store now through December 29, 2007.

Music fans purchasing tickets at Ticketmaster.com to live performances by participating artists will be given the option of adding a digital album to their purchase for one dollar off the album’s price through the end of the year. Ticketmaster.com will provide a direct link that will take the user to the iTunes Store to download their album in full.

Ticketmaster and iTunes are also delivering special Ticketmaster + iTunes gift card packs now available exclusively at Target stores throughout the US. The dual card packages include two $25 gift cards: one redeemable toward tickets at Ticketmaster.com and one redeemable for digital music at the iTunes Store.

Originally posted on November 9, 2007 @ 4:56 am

NBC chief accuses Apple of destroying the music business

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new media newsIn what I believe a desperate move to woo other media companies to support its startup venture Hulu.com, NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker has accused Apple of destroying the music business with its parity pricing strategy implemented in iTunes stores.

Moreover, Zucker believes Apple will also “destroy” the online video business if the traditional media companies will not take a stand against this pricing policy.

You might remember that last month iTunes stopped selling NBC TV shows due to disagreement over price. According to Financial Times, Mr Zucker said “he urged Apple for months to price one programme at $2.99 per download – as opposed to the current $1.99 – as an ‘experiment’ but was rebuffed by Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive.”

What is apparent in Zucker’s remarks is his big concern for profits over consumers’ welfare. If this is a reflection of Hulu’s future direction, Zucker might have a hard time finding suckers who are willing to pay more.

Originally posted on October 30, 2007 @ 10:55 am

iTunes Plus now offers 2 million tracks for just 99 cents

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itunes.jpgApple announced that it has expanded its iTunes Plus offering to over two million tracks and lowered the price of all iTunes Plus tracks to just 99 cents. All iTunes Plus tracks feature DRM-free music with high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings. The iTunes Plus catalog is now the largest DRM-free catalog in the world.

With the expansion of iTunes Plus, customers can now download tracks from a variety of labels without limitations on the type of music player or number of computers that purchased songs can be played on. iTunes Plus songs purchased from the iTunes Store will play on all iPods, iPhone, Windows or Mac computers, widescreen TVs with Apple TV, as well as many other digital music players.

Originally posted on October 17, 2007 @ 12:25 pm

iTunes to stop selling NBC television shows

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nbc1.jpgApple announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming
television season on its online iTunes Store. The move follows NBC’s decision not to renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

“We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We hope they will change their minds and offer their TV shows to the tens of millions of iTunes customers.”

Apple’s agreement with NBC ends in December. Since NBC would withdraw their shows in the middle of the television season, Apple has decided to not offer NBC TV shows for the upcoming television season beginning in September. NBC supplied iTunes with three of its 10 best selling TV shows last season, accounting for 30 percent of iTunes TV show sales.

Originally posted on August 31, 2007 @ 2:02 pm

MTV, RealNetwork, merge online music service to compete with iTunes

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MTV and RealNetworks are set to merge to launch a joint online digital-music site an attempt to compete with Apple’s iTunes store.

MTV is reported to be closing its existing online music service Urge, to venture with RealNetwork’s Rhapsody.

The two music companies were supposed to announce this at a press conference tomorrow, 11am EST. News about the merger, however, slipped out because of failure to put journalists to a non-disclosure agreement. Details of the joint venture will be revealed tomorrow.

Originally posted on August 21, 2007 @ 4:08 am