James Delahunty
31 Aug 2007 5:07
According to the online edition of the New York Times, NBC Universal has declined to renew its contract with Apple Inc.'s iTunes download store. The paper cites a source close to the situation which put the blame on failure to agree on pricing schemes. NBC is the No.1 supplier to the iTunes store and apparently accounts for about 40% of the overall video downloads.
The company notified Apple of its decision late Thursday according to the source. A spokesman for NBC confirmed the decision had been made to the Times but declined to comment any further and spokespeople at Apple have not made any comments yet. There is growing tension between Apple and content providers over the pricing scheme on the iTunes download store.
Apple believes that easy pricing schemes such as "99c per track" or "$1.99 per video" are attractive in the developing market for audio and video downloads. Music labels, and now it would appear video content providers, would prefer a more variable pricing scheme that allowed them some freedom over the price of individual content. Universal Music Group recently declined to sign another long-term deal with iTunes.
Source:
Reuters