Yesterday’s addition of 11 TV shows from NBC Universal to the iTunes Music Store was only the beginning, according to Jeff Zucker, president of the NBC Universal Television Group. “You are going to see a series of announcements in the coming weeks,” he told Variety.
Zucker said that pressure from illegal downloading caused urgency for NBC to make their content available in digital form.
NBC estimates that there are 430,000 illegal downloads of “Battlestar Galactica” each week. “It proves there is tremendous interest in it and good people have developed bad habits by illegally downloading it. Now they will have to develop good habits,” Zucker said.
Zucker also said that recent initiatives from EchoStar and TiVo are operating without the consent of the broadcast networks, and that consumers should look to iTunes and other officially supported paths. “This is clearly not the proper way to behave,” Zucker said. “We have worked in concert with Apple to benefit the consumer; where others are not working with content providers is clearly not in the best interest of the consumer.”
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