Why Murdoch prefers Sony to Amazon
This is from The Short Names and is part of the discussion at the News Corp. earnings report.
From the call after I asked when the app charges would kick in for Blackberry and iTunes, and about discussions with Amazon over customer relationships on the Kindle:
Murdoch: “We are changing the price of the Journal on the Kindle and we’ll get a better share of the revenue although I can’t say that I’m satisfied that it’s the final result that we want but it’ll be a lot better. It’s not a big number and we’re not encouraging it at all because we don’t get the names of the subscribers. Kindle keeps them as their subscribers, not as ours, and I think that eventually will cause a break between us.” [Note: The Kindle subscription was $10 a month and is now $15.]
Doesn’t the same situation exist with iTunes, though, and Apple? Murdoch: The same would apply to them. Apple’s not there yet. I can’t answer that exactly; Apple is said to be coming out with a reader before the end of the year. Certainly, Sony is doing better. We’re in active discussions with them and they certainly accept that the subscribers would be our subscribers.”
I like it!
Argh, commented wrong post.
What this gears up to is: the war over who will own digital content. Not ‘ownership’ in terms of copyright but ‘ownership’ in terms of who gets to call the tune.
Up till the digital age, the publishers were kings, nay — gods of their realms. But is Murdoch the ‘publisher’ of the Kindle edition of WSJ, or is Amazon? The Kindle world puts Newscorp back into the position of a studio or indie producer creating television shows, and Amazon mounts the throne as network.
Murdoch can’t be happy about that — none of the publishers could be.
Their only hope is a standard format that all, or just about all, the ereading devices can handle — including payment options. With that in place, we readers would then deal with Newscorp directly — or Random House, Warner Books, Newsweek, NY Times, and so on.
Maybe it’s time for Murdoch to join IPDF?