Episodes of "Friends," the sci-fi epic "Babylon 5," "The Jetsons" and "The Flintstones" are among the latest content from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group that Apple has recently added to iTunes, its online music and video store.
Ever since Apple introduced its first video iPod late last year, the company has been adding TV shows and music videos to its iTunes catalog at a steady clip. It now has more than 150 TV shows available to consumers -- offerings that range from the very recent -- "Desperate Housewives" and "Law and Order SVU" -- to the quirky pilot episode of "Aquaman," the latest interpretation of DC Comics" Aquaman mythology.
Driving sales of its products through digital content is one of Apple"s most tried-and-true business strategies. Several years ago, the company made the iPod the world"s No. 1 portable music device by offering users a large selection of downloadable songs for 99 US cents each. In February, Coldplay"s "Speed of Sound" became the one-billionth song downloaded from the online music segment of the store. Alex Ostrovsky, the lucky customer, won a 20-inch Mac computer, 10 iPods and a $10,000 iTunes gift certificate.
Now Apple is trying to do with videos what it accomplished with music. Already, according to Cue, iTunes has sold some 35 million videos.
"Why mess with success?" asks Yankee Group analyst Mike Goodman. "It is obvious Apple is going to continue to improve its catalog [by] adding new pieces to it," he told MacNewsWorld