Fox tries new lure for iPod crowd
The network and Apple will offer premieres of seven shows for free. — Beginning this week, season premiere episodes of seven Fox Broadcasting programs will be made available for free through Apple's iTunes store, a move that highlights the TV industry's race …
Context & Ripple Effects
Fox is putting season premiere episodes of seven of its programs on Apple's iTunes store for free this week, a confirmed giveaway aimed squarely at the iPod audience. The timing matters: the same day, ABC announced its own free-online push through AOL Video, so two major broadcasters are converging on the same playbook within 24 hours.
The pickup in trade and tech outlets — Broadcasting & Cable and Digital Daily among them — frames this as part of the TV industry's broader race to stake out Apple's store as a digital distribution channel ahead of the fall season.
First-order effects
- iTunes users get seven Fox season premieres at no cost, while Fox gains a promotional funnel that pushes its fall lineup onto the device carrying the iPod crowd's viewing habits.
- Apple's store becomes a broadcast marketing surface, deepening its role as gatekeeper between networks and portable-video viewers.
Second-order effects
- Rival networks face pressure to match free-per Premiere sampling on iTunes or differentiate elsewhere — ABC's same-day AOL deal shows the response is already forming around alternate platforms rather than ceding the channel to Fox and Apple.
- Advertisers and affiliate stations watch whether free digital premieres cannibalize linear tune-in or lift it, which determines whether other broadcasters treat iTunes giveaways as standard launch practice.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, network premieres shift from one-time broadcasts to multi-platform events where the free digital copy is a customer-acquisition cost for paid downloads and device ecosystems — with Apple positioned as the tollbooth.
- The dependence cuts both ways: any network that feels Apple's terms squeeze its economics has an incentive to bolt for direct distribution, making platform-versus-network leverage the structural fault line of digital TV.
The trend: Broadcasters are racing to use Apple's iTunes as both a promo sampler and a storefront, trading free premiere episodes for a foothold in portable-video distribution.