NBC - ITUNES SUCCESS A DROP IN THE BUCKET FOR TV SHOWS

ITUNES SUCCESS A DROP IN THE BUCKET FOR TV SHOWS

The fact that Fox's new Dollhouse, which debuted Friday with so-so ratings, rose quickly to become the No. 1-downloaded TV show on iTunes says little about its popularity, several web sites commented on Tuesday. TVByTheNumbers.com observed that to achieve No. 1 status on iTunes, a show generally needs to be downloaded no more than 25,000 times. "There is a lot of data, particularly from NBC [which has had a rocky relationship with iTunes] ... to corroborate that estimate," the website noted. Likewise, a hit show on NBC/Fox's Hulu is likely to attract no more than 250,000 viewers, despite the fact that it can be watched for free. Those figures translate into insignificant revenue for television networks who generally charge advertisers about $25 per thousand viewers. The figures may be particularly relevant as negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers enter a second day today (Wednesday), with much of the discussion focused on residual pay for new media -- particularly Internet -- replay.

18/02/2009