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Apple iTunes to Offer 99 Cent TV Shows?

by Tim Stevens on September 10, 2007 at 02:19 PM

Apple Wants 99-cent TV Show Downloads

When NBC decided to pull its shows from iTunes last week, it was assumed that a pricing dispute was the reason behind the change. Now we have a bit more information that seems to back the price-change theory up. Word on the street is that Apple is trying to cut the price of television shows on iTunes by half, meaning that buyers might eventually pay only $.99 for downloads of, say, the latest episode of 'CSI' or 'Grey's Anatomy' (versus the $1.99 per episode they're paying now).

Networks are, perhaps unsurprisingly, less enthusiastic about this cut than Apple, since they'll be the ones losing the most.

Apple's reasoning is that the 50-percent price cut would more than double overall sales of video downloads, resulting in greater profits overall. Television networks, however, fear that price would cut into sales of their DVD collections, as a $.99-per-episode pricing scheme would undercut the cost of many of their retail DVD boxed sets by almost half. (DVD box sets of entire TV seasons usually cost about $40-$50; reduced price TV shows on iTunes would cost around $25.)

For its part, Apple has not confirmed these reports, so at this point we'll just have to wait and see whether Apple's Steve Jobs can get any of the networks on-board.

For the next couple of months, it might be a good idea to refrain from making any large iTunes purchases of TV shows (like an entire season of a particular program), because it's unlikely Steve would give you the same kind of refund he gave irate iPhoners.

From BetaNews

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Tags: Apple, downloadable video, DownloadableVideo, iTunes

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