That crashing sound you can hear towards the beginning of Steve Jobs’s keynote today? That’d be my jaw (it’s surprisingly heavy) hitting the floor at the news that NBC had returned to the iTunes Store. You know, it’d been so long since the Peacock network took their toys and went home that, well, I’d almost forgotten that they still existed. As had the rest of the American populace.
I kid, I kid!
But yes, NBC is back and they’re betterer than ever. Not only are all of their primetime shows like Heroes, The Office, now available for download, but as good Mr. McNulty has already informed you, they’re available in HD for $2.99, with standard definition episodes available for $1.99 (or bundled alongside the HD versions). You may recall that one of the issues that prompted NBC’s departure from the iTunes store was a little thing called “variable pricing.” The addition of HD at higher price points may soothe the savage beast in that regard somewhat—but wait! There’s a tidbit lodged in Apple’s press release about NBC that you just might have glossed over:
NBC is also making full episodes of several vintage television shows available on iTunes for $.99, including “The A-Team,” “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,” “Miami Vice,” “Kojak” and the original “Battlestar Galactica.”
Huh. Well, variable pricing it is then. What the press release doesn’t mention is that one of those vintage television shows is the classic drama from my youth about teenagers and their difficult lives in a small California town, making tough choices, continually faced with obstacles on their path towards simple happiness. I speak, of course, of Saved By The Bell (iTunes link).
It’s also worth pointing out that NBC is offering free HD downloads of single episodes from several of its shows, including Psych, Monk, Battlestar Galactica, and Heroes. I’m downloading the first episode of Life as we speak, which weighs in at a hefty 1.34 GB for the HD episode (which I’m not even sure my original Core Duo MacBook can play—Update: plays smooth on my MacBook, no problem) and 484.2 MB for the accompanying SD episode. Yeesh: almost 2GB for one show—time to upgrade the old hard drive.
So, with all this happiness and rainbow-colored joy, is the Peacock-a-thon finally at an end? After over a dozen posts and more than a year of wrangling, has the bitter feud breathed its last, er…at last? With big companies like these, it’s never certain, but to our eyes today, it certainly looks like NBC and Apple are the bestest of friends once again. A shame: I just got the esteemed MacUser art team (also known as me, a copy of Acorn, and a complete lack of artistic talent) working on that new logo.
Dammit, put Life on the UK Apple Store. I've watched the first episode last week but missed the 2nd this week when the video recorder (remember one of those) ate the tape so I rather hoping that iTunes would help me out. That it's not there is one thing, but that it is available via the US iTunes Store is just damned annoying.
Back when Universal jumped on board the big Apple TV event (take 2 and call me in the morning?) I told my wife that NBC would be back sooner rather than later. Once the big dawg was in, all bets were off for the peecock.