Could Apple, NBC be patching up differences?
Hollywood Newsroom is now Buzz Newsroom! Visit and bookmark our new site. Buzz is bigger and better, including sports, world news, gadgets and the entertainment news that you're used to. Same staff, just more stuff! Why Fark, Drudge and Huffington when you can Buzz!?Apple and NBC Universal engaged in one of the more spirited feuds of 2007, when the two companies parted ways over pricing at the iTunes Store. While NBC programming remains absent from the U.S. version of Apple’s online digital media store, the two companies could be taking steps to resolve their differences—at least on the other side of the Atlantic.
As of this past Tuesday, episodes from five series produced by Universal Media Studios, the production arm of NBC Universal, were available for purchase on the U.K.’s version of the iTunes Store: Heroes, House, The Incredible Hulk, Eureka, and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Notably, the shows are available for two different prices—current programs Heroes, House, and Eureka sell for the standard iTunes UK rate of £1.89 an episode while the older shows cost £1.19 each.
The variable pricing should raise eyebrows, as that’s the issue that was rumored to be at the heart of the Apple-NBC spat that boiled off last August. Media reports at the time suggested that NBC wanted to increase prices for popular programs by either raising the per-episode price or packaging it with other content. Apple has opposed most forms of variable pricing at the iTunes Store, with the notable exceptions of new movie releases and DRM-free music.
- From Macworld