Just last week, NBC Universal and Apple failed to come to an agreement on selling television programs in Apple’s iTunes store, with the result that NBC shows will be vanishing from iTunes: shows from the upcoming television season won’t be for sale on iTunes, and come December NBC Universal shows will disappear from iTunes entirely. Now, those shows have found a new home at Amazon Unbox—but users will be able to view those shows on fewer devices, only using Windows machines or TiVo set-top boxes, and certainly not on an iPod.
NBC Universal television content is available for sale now on Amazon Unbox, and as a way to promote the service, beginning September 10 fans will be able to download pilot episodes of new NBC shows like The Bionic Woman,Life,Chuck, and Journeyman for free even before they’ve premiered on the broadcast networks. Amazon will also be offering a 30 percent discount on purchasing full seasons of television series—a deal which may be representative of the type of pricing and bundling deals NBC can get from Amazon that it couldn’t wring from Apple.
Users will also find the terms of using Amazon Unbox more restrictive than the iTunes store: where iTunes enables users to view purchased content on as many as five approved devices, and devices can handle content from up to five separate iTunes accounts. Conversely, Amazon Unbox content can only be viewed on two approved devices, and a single device cannot access content from more than one account. Also, users will not be able to transfer video content to iPods; in fact, aside from Amazon Unbox support from select TiVo set-top boxes, Amazon Unbox purchases are restricted to Windows systems and approved devices: Macintosh and Linux users are not supported. One deal-breaking point for NBC and Apple was NBC seeking more “protection” for its content.
“With the addition of NBC Universal TV content to Amazon Unbox, fans now have the ultimate convenience for enjoying their favorite shows whenever or wherever they want,” said Jean-Briac Perrette, President of NBC Universal Digital Distribution, in a release. “This further expands our longstanding relationship to bring a robust content offering to the marketplace in a variety of ways that will benefit the consumer and, at the same time, protects our content.”
