Bravo Apple

NBC (Battlestar Galactica, The Office, Heroes etc) has had a deal with Apple for their shows to be re-broadcast on iTunes for the last year or more. Apple has always charged $1.99 an episode, making it a great alternative to missed episodes, and I've used it like this before.

NBC realized they could make more money, so they wanted to bump the price, per episode, to $5.99.

When the story broke this morning it was looking like they wouldn't agree, and the contract in December would expire.

It sounds like the negotiations were already ended. Apple just announced that they would be terminating all NBC shows before they started their new seasons instead. Basically, tomorrow.

Apple may not be the bastions for consumer rights that some Apple fanboys make them out to be for this, but it was a pretty ballsy move, and sends the message to other media companies that to get your stuff on iTunes, the biggest, and from my experience and my opinion, best, online media distrbution out there, you need to play by *their* rules, and not make up your own.

No one will buy NBC shows from another network - instead we will go back to "Life before iTunes" and pull them from bit torrents. NBC will get squat for that.