NBC not winning the spin war.
NBC's attempt to spin this back in its favor ("Investment Tools" indeed) is pretty weak tea:
We never asked to double the wholesale price for our TV shows.
Yes, because $4.99 is not two times $1.99. It's two and a half times! Advantage NBC!
In fact, our negotiations were centered on our request for flexibility in wholesale pricing, including the ability to package shows together in ways that could make our content even more attractive for consumers.
Yeah! Because everyone enjoys being forced to spend more money than they wanted to, right?! Let's paraphrase NBC's Cory Shields, shall we?
If you liked "Heroes", you probably won't like "Raines" because "Heroes" is good and "Raines" isn't. Well, too bad, suckers, because we're only selling them together from now on! But, you are getting that crappy second show at a discount, because we value our viewer monkeys.
Er, I mean "customers". I meant to say "customers".
Now, who wouldn't like that?!
But seriously, this is all about two things: 1) trying to increase revenue for lousy NBC shows and 2) trying to reduce Apple's market dominance.
Do you know how you can tell NBC is in the wrong here? You can tell because even guys like Paul Thurrott think so. What more do you need? An pro-Apple/anti-NBC screed from George Ou? Because the horned one's not sure he could handle that.
The Macalope will give Michael Gartenberg the last humorous word:
Sometimes I think God put video content guys on the planet to make the music guys look progressive and visionary.