NBC vs itunes: A Regular Consumer is Caught in the Middle

Perhaps I am a little off topic here. I am certainly not the demographic that Apple is mainly targeting with itunes. I am probably not the demographic that NBC is targeting. Surprise surprise. Regular people who are over 50 years old also depend on their ability to receive content through other than mainstream channels.

I work in a home office and am at my computer far longer than the average work day. Since my job involves using multiple monitors and the office pets are not terribly conversational I have turned to watching online tv. Often I have an episode of Top Chef or Project Runway going while I work. If I miss something (as I often do while concentrating on actual work) I can rewind, replay and not miss a bit.

Another reason I watch certain shows this way is that I am able to enjoy shows my husband might not necessarily like. He’d watch them with me but why make him suffer through an episode he doesn’t really like when there are many shows we both enjoy?

I depend on itunes a lot and have spent a lot of my hard earned money there. A lot.

I have also discovered that the streaming (free) content on abc.com is technically far superior to that of the other networks. Coincidentally, and luckily, many of my favorite shows are on abc. (psst, I’d love to see Women’s Murder Club added to their online lineup).

The rest of my favorite shows are, for the most part, on Bravo and PBS. So I wasn’t terribly concerned when I heard that NBC was not going to continue selling its shows on itunes. Most of those I was happy to watch at night at their usual time. I actually didn’t know that Bravo was an NBC network.

Having enjoyed recent seasons of Top Chef and Project Runway imagine my dismay to discover that in the middle of trying to purchase entire previous seasons yesterday that they were being taken off itunes even as I pressed the buy button. Thinking it was just a fluke or network problem I’d push the buy button again and again only to get the message “This content does not exist in the American store. It may have moved. . ” I am paraphrasing.

Bravo doesn’t have anything but video clips on its website. Netflix doesn’t have the dvds. Someone is losing out on the chance to get a lot of my hard earned money and I’m definitely going to blame NBC.

But it would have been nice if itunes had sent out a “Buy now if you want it warning” to folks. Their loss too.

In the Midst of The Holiday

You notice I didn’t say season. The Holiday begins at some point before Halloween and continues through Valentines Day. For a while I was calling it Christmaween (this is when you try to pick up Halloween candy prior to Halloween and discover it has already been replaced with Christmas candy. You’d get away with it except the wrappers have holly sprigs and are either red or green. If you want generic candy you might want to stock up in August.

I don’t know about you but my extended family is notorious for scheduling holidays around our own schedule – so while the rest of the world is celebrating Christmas on December 25 we are celebrating a mini Christmas complete with tree decoration and gifts on the day after Thanksgiving (because everyone is here and they won’t be on Christmas day). Our neighbors celebrated Thanksgiving the day before Thanksgiving because they both had to work on the holiday itself. (Hospital patients require care every day of the year).

In the interest of full disclosure we will probably celebrate at least three Christmas’s before we are done (and will fold Hanukkah in as well).

I was wondering about this concentration of holidays. Remember we continue on to New Years and then Valentines day.

All of these holidays are an obvious ploy to keep us as distracted as possible from the depressing and increasingly short days. To some degree it works.

Thank God.