According to Jeff Zucker CEO NBC Universal, Apple has destroyed the music business. Now let see the problem with this statement is, its music industry that should be blamed. In late 1990s and early 2000 I use to buy around 3 CDs every month and out of those 3 CDs I use to like or regularly listen to about 8-10 songs. So in a given year I liked or use to regularly listen to about 120 new songs. Last year I just bought 54 songs from iTunes and the truth is that the number of CDs or songs I bought have been decreasing since 2001. Its not that the amount of time I give to music everyday has decreased, so the problem definitely lies in quality of music.
Now Zucker wasn’t troubled by what Apple did to music industry but his main problem was with Apple not increasing the price of Universal shows offered on iTunes and Apple not sharing revenues which it makes by selling iPods. NBC wanted to take one show and experiment and sell it for $2.99 but Apple said no. The demands that NBC is making are definitely not consumer friendly and it’s a good thing that Apple didn’t change the price. The entertainment industry is becoming the most anti-consumer industry. They should make it easy for the consumer to get show, movies and music without many restrictions. The second demand NBC had was revenue sharing on the hardware Apple sells, does NBC get revenue from the TVs or DVD players sold by Sony, Samsung or any other company. When they don’t get revenue from Sony or Samsung than why should Apple pay anything? My suggestion to Jeff Zucker is if you are trying to make your company more anti-consumer then you shouldn’t announce it in public, it gives a bad name to your company.