Preview Mode Links will not work in preview mode

Light On Light Through

You'll hear a little of this and lot of that on Light On Light Through - my reviews of great television series and movies, my interviews with authors and creative media people and their interviews of me, my media theory and political commentary, thoughts about my favorite cars and food and space travel, discussions of my music, and a few of my readings from my science fiction stories. In the first years, starting in 2006, I put up a new episode at least once a month.  More recently, it became more or less often than once a month, usually less often.  But in the Summer of 2020, I began getting more in the mood to podcast, and on 17 October 2023, I began publishing a new episode of the podcast every Tuesday at 12:01 pm -- a minute after Noon (New York time).  - Paul Levinson 

24 October 2021: Interview about Light On Light Through podcast

26 December 2023: Chuck Todd interviews Paul Levinson about Alternate Realities on The Chuck Toddcast  

  1. All Episodes
  2. NBC and iTunes Stop Their Old-Fashioned Dance

NBC and iTunes Stop Their Old-Fashioned Dance

Sep 2, 2007


A lot of hand wringing, phosphor, and ink spilled over the news that NBC shows won't be for sale any more on iTunes. According to Apple, that's because it didn't want to go along with an NBC price hike that would have upped the per-episode download price from $1.99 to $4.99 for consumers...

But, you know what? They're both wrong. NBC, sure, for wanting to get more money for its downloaded shows, but iTunes and NBC were both wrong, in the first place, to charge even $1.95 per download.

Most people already know that that you can see episodes of most major shows for free, on the NBC or whatever network's web site - not to mention bittorent and all the rest.

The world of television consumption is changing, almost by the minute, and it's moving towards people watching whatever they want, when they want, and not paying for it. Actually, there's probably a shorter distance between this and traditional free television in your living room than download-and-pay.

NBC and Apple are usually ahead of the pack in understanding this new world. Maybe NBC does understand this, and wants to drive more viewers to its own site.

But whatever the reasoning, it's a safe bet that corporate, profit-per-item mentality is a stubborn old bird, and won't die easily, even in the digital age.