Monkey (nb)C, Monkey Do

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This is almost comical. My best friend and I as kids used to laugh at how Burger King and McDonald's added items to their menu following the other's lead. We joked that if someone put a ladder up to clean the McDonald's sign, a ladder would appear up on the Burger King sign, too. Well, we thought it was funny.

So, NBC announced today that they are going to make a handful of shows available on iTunes, the Apple music web site. The price? The same as ABC/Disney: $1.99 a pop. Now NBC's old parent, RCA, introduced its videodisc player with just 100 titles, half of which were public domain (government films) including, as I recall, the Sex Life of the Grasshopper (maybe an urban legend). The SelectaVision failed due to some technical problems but especially because of very limited software (in this case, movies and TV shows). Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it (and that is not a direct quote). This news was all over the web including Reuters from which I gleaned the new information.

I suspect that unless Janet Jackson stunts happen in these shows, they are not bound for success. See my earlier post about the huge difference between $.99 and $1.99. Alfred Hitchcock? I loved that show, but $1.99 an episode? Let me watch a 10-second commercial for toothpaste instead.