Apple partners with MGM
Companies pact on catalog titles
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Steve Jobs-led company on Tuesday signed MGM as its latest partner to sell catalog titles, but not new releases.
It also revealed that, since it started offering movies on iTunes in September, it has sold more than 2 million. That's well more than any other online moviestore but shows the service isn't growing fast. From September through January, with only Disney pics available, iTunes sold 1.3 million movies.
In the past three months, company has sold some 700,000 more. Though comparisons are difficult because iTunes sales always spike around the holidays, numbers demonstrate that the addition of three new studios this winter has not significantly accelerated business.
ITunes' $9.99 price on older pics is roughly equivalent to, and in some cases higher than, what studios get for DVDs.
Company's pricing for new releases -- $12.99 the first week, $14.99 thereafter -- is below what studios get for DVDs, which is why only Disney, in which Jobs is the largest individual shareholder, has agreed to sell non-library pics on iTunes.
Paramount, Lionsgate and IFC are also selling only their catalog pics on iTunes.
MGM made 24 films available through iTunes on Tuesday, including "Dances With Wolves," "Mad Max" and "Rocky," and will add more in the coming months.
Apple now has more than 500 movies available on iTunes.
Expanding its library of video content is crucial to the company as it starts selling its Apple TV device, which allows users to watch digitally downloaded content on their televisions.
Apple makes most of its profits off of hardware and counts on iTunes to help spur their sales.
