iTunes Hikes Vid Prices with Debut of HBO Content

HBO and Apple have partnered to sell HBO shows on iTunes. Starting today episodes of HBO shows The Wire, Rome, Sex and the City, Flight of the Conchords, The Sopranos, and Deadwood can be purchased for as much as $3. That's a price hike for the standard iTunes pricing for series episodes.

What's interesting about the deal is the fact that HBO was able to convince Apple to price some of the shows higher than the standard $1.99-per-episode rate that applies to all other TV shows in the iTunes catalog. You may recall that same tactic backfiring on NBC earlier this year, prompting the network to pull all of its shows from iTunes.

Here's the current pricing for HBO's offerings:

- The Wire, Season 1: $1.99 per episode
- Rome, Season 1: $2.99 per episode
- Sex and the City, Season 6, Part 2: $1.99 per episode
- Flight of the Conchords, Season 1: $1.99 per episode
- The Sopranos, Season 6, Part 2: $2.99 per episode
- Deadwood, Season 1: $2.99 per episode

So most of the shows being offered are hardly new and it'll be interesting to see how many people shell out $3 for an episode from the first season of Deadwood or Rome. At least The Sopranos episodes are from the most current (and final) season.

It'll be even more interesting to see how Apple handles TV show pricing now that HBO has been given special treatment. Would NBC have been able to sell shows for more than $1.99 if this HBO deal had been brokered beforehand? I doubt it. Here's why.

HBO charges a monthly premium for access to its content, NBC is (for all intents and purposes) free. People are used to paying for HBO but not for broadcast television shows. I used to subscribe to HBO and this iTunes thing seems to me like a good way to catch the final season of The Sopranos that I missed after I canceled my HBO service.

If I had missed the previous season of, say, The Office on NBC, I'd eventually be able to catch reruns of it on NBC, TBS, or maybe Hulu. As a last resort, I might pay $2 an episode via iTunes. But would I pay more than $2 per episode for something I could otherwise get for free elsewhere? Not likely. Sure, I could catch the final season of

The Sopranos syndicated on A&E but it's edited for language and adult content and all that good stuff. It's not the same. Network television is the same in syndication as it is in its original form.

I think we'll see Apple bend the rules for "premium" episodic content that you'd otherwise have to pay a monthly fee to watch on your TV from the likes of HBO, Showtime, and places like that but I don't think it'll budge too much for network content that's available freely from various other sources.

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