No More ‘Heroes’ (or any other NBC shows) on iTunes

Yup. That's right. It started as rumored disputes over pricing, but now it's official. I mean Apple press release official. Here's the deal. Apple's iTunes store typically sells television shows for $1.99 per episode. NBC wanted to up the price of their content to $4.99 per episode. (For a typical 22 episode season of a TV show that's $109.78!) Apple said no go and that was that. NBC's iTunes contract doesn't end until December, but Apple decided to just drop them altogether. With iTunes TV show sales in the millions and NBC's content accounting for 30% of that, there is quite a bit of money being lost on either side. Not to mention the countless iPods and iPhones that will be Heroes-less, Bionic Woman-less and The Office-less.

The weird thing is I haven't seen anybody mention Universal Music's recent non-renewal of their iTunes contract in conjunction with story. NBC and Universal have been the same company since 2004 and this almost simultaneous snubbing of Apple is probably no coincidence. It seems that the U.S.'s third largest music retailer may be in for some serious competition.