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Despite NBC's Return, Apple and NBC Still Disputing Claims

Thursday September 11, 2008 5:56 pm PDT by Arnold Kim
At the "Let's Rock" media event, Steve Jobs announced that NBC had returned to iTunes after being absent from the online store for almost a year. The removal of NBC shows from iTunes was the result of a very public dispute between the the two companies.

Apple announced in August of 2007 that they would no longer be selling NBC television shows because NBC wanted "double the wholesale price" for each episode. NBC later disputed this claim by saying that they simply wanted flexible pricing. In the end, Apple and NBC were unable to come to an agreement until this week.

After Tuesday's announcement, NBC executives claimed that Apple had conceded to its demands about pricing and packaging shows together. NBC is now offering some catalog titles for $0.99 as well as package deals that could offer customers a bulk discount. Apple's Eddie Cue, however, has since denied that these claims are true. According to Cue, lower prices have always been an option for networks.

"We've never told anyone they can't lower prices," Cue said.

Cue also pointed out that the higher $2.99 price introduced on Tuesday is simply their standard price for High Definition content.

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