Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that NBC Universal notified Apple about its intentions to pull their TV shows from iTunes Store in December. According to the report, NBC Universal invoked its disagreements with Apple over the pricing scheme and DRM policies. Although Apple officials declined to comment directly the New York Times story, the company released press statement which announced that will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season.

Apparently, 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. NBC Universal reacted to Apple’s statement, by saying that the problem wasn’t the price, as the iTunes’ owner implied.

NBC has thus found another solution to reap some profits off downloading of its TV shows. The company released yesterday afternoon a statement announcing NBC Direct, an ad-supported free service that will allow users to download full-length episodes of NBC shows straight to their desktops starting in October.

The shows will be playable, at first, only on Windows PCs as the company has yet to develop solutions for Macs and iPods. Users will be able to download the shows and watch them the week after they air, after which their license will expire. The actual distribution of the high-resolution programs may be made available via a closed peer-to-peer network of some sort.

NBC explained that is only the first step as the company intends to provide further business models in 2008, including download-to-own, rental and subscription.

"With the creation of this new service, we are acknowledging that now, more than ever, viewers want to be in control of how, when and where they consumer their favorite entertainment," said Vivi Zigler, executive VP of NBC Digital Entertainment. "Not only does this feature give them more control, but it also gives them a higher quality video experience."

Heroes, The Office, Life, Bionic Woman, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights, Late Night with Conan O'Brien and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno will be the first shows to be available through NBC Direct.

Just days after its dispute over TV shows' pricing on iTunes, NBC Universal has left the iTunes store for good and announced a new partnership with Amazon Unbox, none other than iTunes’ biggest rival. Their shows are also available on Unbox -- for a price, but ad-free.

"With the addition of NBC Universal TV content to Amazon Unbox, fans now have the ultimate convenience for enjoying their favorite shows whenever or wherever they want," said Jean-Briac Perrette, President, NBC Universal Digital Distribution, in early September. "This further expands our longstanding relationship to bring a robust content offering to the marketplace in a variety of ways that will benefit the consumer and, at the same time, protects our content."