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As you may have heard already, NBC has decided that they are no longer going to sell their television shows on iTunes anymore. This includes shows like “The Office,” and “Heroes.” After the story appeared in the New York Times, Apple released a press release addressing the issue:

Apple® today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com). The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

Since then, NBC has come out and said that they never told Apple that they wanted to raise all prices to $4.99, but made a “request for flexibility in wholesale pricing, including the ability to package shows together in ways that could make our content even more attractive for consumers.” Basically they wanted to be able to set the price point of some shows higher than the current $1.99, and wanted to be able to bundle some shows with others.

Just like the Eminem lawsuit, in the end who is taking the content hurting in the end? Even though NBC’s shows account for between 30-40 percent of Apple’s video purchases, that is just money that is no longer going into NBC’s pocket, while also making their shows less widely available. Supposedly the two companies are still in talks, so there still is a chance that they can come to some sort of compromise before December when NBC’s contract runs out.

Press Release [Apple] NBC Response [paidContent]