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NBC Will Offer TV Shows on Amazon Instead of iTunes

by Evan Shamoon on September 6, 2007 at 09:41 AM



Just days after backing out of its proposed deal with Apple, NBC has just jumped into bed with superlover Amazon.com to sell television show downloads online. The likes of 'The Office,' 'Heroes' and '30 Rock' will now be available through Amazon's Unbox digital video download service, where individual episodes will cost $1.99 a pop (the same as they were on iTunes). The won't be playable on iPods, of course, but will possibly be compatible with Windows-Media-friendly devices such as the Creative Zen.

This makes NBC the second major media company to show Apple the hand, along with Vivendi's Universal Music Group. Apple said NBC wanted to double the wholesale rate for each show, which Apple said would have forced its iTunes online store to raise its price to $4.99 per TV show episode from $1.99.

NBC Universal (which, incidentally, had been the number one supplier of digital video to iTunes), claimed that its focus was on more "flexibility" and the ability to "package shows together" ... which we're gonna go ahead and read as "sell for $4.99 apiece, unless you buy several at once."

So it looks like you'll have to settle for 'Jericho' and other fine offerings from CBS, ABC, and other networks on your shiny new iPods.

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Tags: Amazon Unbox, AmazonUnbox, iTunes, NBC

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