by Michelle Lentz

I tried to ignore this news today. I mean, every Tuesday I get an email from Apple with information on new iTunes content. Why should this be any different? Then I read the press release.

At first, it’s just an announcement about content. Carrie Bradshaw, Tony Soprano, and many of the HBO cast of characters are now available on iTunes.

What’s exciting here isn’t the content, but the pricing. An episode of Rome will cost you $2.99 but an episode of Sex & the City costs $1.99. It’s a hint that Apple is perhaps moving away from its insistence on flat rate pricing ($1.99 TV, $.99 music). If you recall, this insistence is what drove NBC from iTunes last year and into the waiting arms of Amazon Unbox.

Recently NBC announced that the availability of The Office and 30 Rock for direct download to your iPhone/iPod Touch from its Web site. I can’t help but wonder, now that Apple seems to be a little more malleable in its position, if NBC and Apple might yet reconcile.

Before you all mention that, indeed, Apple did this before with PBS, remember that there were special terms of use for those shows, including showing them in the classroom/education purposes.

Although you can pick up a full digital season, this is the first time HBO is making their content available in single episode format. With the upcoming opening of the Sex and the City movie – important enough to be mentioned in the press release – it’s a great opportunity to expose a new audience to their content, one episode at a time.

Do enough poking around on this and you’ll discover that this is only one of HBO’s digital initiatives. HBO on Broadband seems to be coming, although its not widely available just yet. HBO on Broadband looks to be on-demand access to all of HBO’s programming via your PC, whether you subscribe to HBO or not.

As long as one of these places – be it HBO Broadband or iTunes – eventually picks up Entourage, I’m happy. I’ve yet to see that show and I just know I’d love it.

UPDATE: I just read a good analysis of the deal and it was suggested that this won’t help heal the NBC wounds. HBO is premium (ie, paid for) content to begin with; NBC is free. Interesting point.

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