12/03/2007, 10:25am, EST
Monday, December 3rd
NBC Universal videos disappear from iTunes
As promised, NBC Universal's videos were this weekend pulled from the iTunes Store, leaving the site's video content considerably diminished. Material from the TV network and its affiliated companies once accounted for 40 percent of all video on iTunes, and included some of the most popular downloads, such as Battlestar Galactica and The Office, the latter of which was even featured in an iPhone keynote by Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
The removal coincides with the expiry of NBC's agreement, which the company decided to let slip due to unhappiness with Apple's pricing policies. While NBC wanted to experiment with different schemes, such as bundles or a test pricing of $2.99 for a single show, Apple refused, insisting that it conform with the standard season pass/$1.99-per-episode format. NBC has launched its own competition through a joint venture, Hulu, but a number of major networks remain on iTunes, including ABC, CBS, Fox and Comedy Central.
,
, 18
,
,
,
,
,

subscribe to comments
for this article
Well, I guess it's Universal's job to maximize revenue for shareholders. So I can't fault them for that, but it simply isn't going to work. iTunes is where it's at. Hulu will join all the other online music/video stores in the scrap heap and in the future Universal/NBC will have to come back to iTunes.
I checked out NBC's online offerings recently and HATE them. They absolutely STINK. They don't understand the benefit (and simplicity) of iTunes and the direction many, many consumers are wanting to go.
iTunes makes it easy to find and download great quality content, -keep it for later viewing-, without commercials. I don't want to go to this or that site to find the content I'm looking for and then have to watch a commercial or two when I finally do find what I'm looking for and endure a sub-par streaming video.
Those behind this NBC decision really are not smart. Hopefully they'll get their act together and come back around. I do believe Apple could provide a little more incentive for these studios to offer content on iTunes and think Apple should consider a small percentage of iPod profit depending on the percentage of studio's content being bought by consumers on iTunes.
Doofuses.