I might have missed yesterday’s ‘What to Buy’ consumerism at its best post but, fear not. I’ll simply suggest Elizabeth (Spotlight Series) on regular DVD or HD-DVD and move on.

While Viacom is getting ready to kiss Spielberg goodbye when his contract expires Disney and News Corp. are just settling in for the long HD format war against the company. Iger and Murdoch both made comments yesterday in regards to the superiority of the format and casually dismissed Viacom’s selling out for $200 million; a “donation” from Toshiba. Disney chief Iger said “we haven’t taken any money (to choose Blu-ray) because we think it’s far and away the best business.”

NBC on iPod

Speaking of the industry not getting along with each other, CBS has said they’re ” staying out of the battle” between NBC/Universal and Apple. Fox too will remain inactive on the matter. Disney (whose largest shareholder is Mr. Steve Jobs), the owner of ABC, has remained silent on the matter and continues to lead the networks in sales of its television shows via iTunes. Fox and CBS dislike Apple controlling the pricing of its content and resistance to selling movies with the digital service has remained high due to the price fixing control Apple wields. The original goal was for all movies to be set at $9.99 but not even Disney went for that deal and new releases can get up to $15.99 (still cheaper than the average $19.99 from brick and mortar stores like Best Buy or Target). The television and film industry has the luxury of being more protective of their content than the music industry was.

While box office and dvd sales have decreased in recent years due to piracy the impact is not nearly on the same scale the recording industry was facing in the late 90s. My prediction is that the other sites that NBC/Universal, Fox and others have created to sell their content on will under perform the same way the 3 Microsoft sites have (including the Zune’s site) and eventually new deals with Apple will be reached. For now expect a small backlash at Apple and the film and television industry trying to put the tech company from the valley back in its place, as a distributor, not creator of content. No wonder Disney is in bed with Apple, always first for new avenues of distribution of their content.


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