Although I doubt Jobs was directly involved in the HBO negotiations, the deal probably hinged on his acceptance of it. Since Jobs is a man of long term vision, Apple’s acquiescense of the terms probably has a long term goal.

Get the studios into iTunes, grow the marketshare so the studios are receiving a significant amount of income from it (too much to let go), then when things are up for renegotiation, get the studios to concede to Apple.

Concede now, dictate later.

Excuse me, but dramatic shows are usually one hour (or 45-50 minutes without ads) and sitcoms are 30 minutes (minus the ads).

What am I missing here?

Peace,
Gene

“In a sense, the entertainment industry created its own monster, and needed Steve Jobs to rescue them from their folly. They have never been able to understand that most people are basically honest, and they do not spend the largest portion of their leisure time trolling for pirated product on peer-to-peer download sites.”

The record companies have to be one of the most throughly dishonest bunch of loan sharks outside of the mafia. I have talked to musicians and if you think they treat their customers like trash, they treat their artists much worse. No wonder they do not believe in honest people.

Also, all this change does is charging more for hour shows than half hour shows. The majors do not produce many hour long shows any more.