• Wired, Monday, October 1, 2007 12:45 PM

It's less than a month after NBC decided to pull its new season shows from Apple's iTunes, and the media giant's executives say they're just not worried about the companies' inability to come to an agreement on pricing. "We'd love to figure out something with Apple, but frankly, we have a lot of other alternatives," J.B. Perrette told Wired.

NBC isn't alone; other big media companies may soon wake up to find out that they have leverage in their iTunes negotiations with Apple. Once upon a time (some two years ago), they needed Apple's distribution power to sell shows online, but two years later, that ship has sailed: media devices now connect directly to the Internet, so Apple's software-based media service is no longer needed for distribution. NBC, for example, has two new ad-supported services in the pipeline, NBC Direct, which offers free downloads that expire seven days each broadcast date, and Hulu, a joint streaming video service with News Corp.'s Fox.

As the Wired report points out, there's a big difference between video and music. iTunes absolutely dominates the latter, mostly because Big Music lacks a direct route to online distribution. But you can't say the same thing about video--which is why Forrester Research's James McQuivey believes Apple will be motivated to negotiate, as NBC's shows account for nearly 30% of iTunes video sales. The parties have until Nov. 30 to iron out an agreement.

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