Official: HBO arrives on iTunes, standard pricing be damned

It's official. HBO content just entered the digital halls of iTunes with variable pricing. Episodes of Rome and The Sopranos pop for $2.99 while The Wire and Sex and the City (yes the complete series) go for the iTunes "standard" pricing of $1.99. We just fired-up iTunes and confirmed it just like the rumor predicted. With Apple backing down from its strict, flat-rate pricing policy, don't be surprised to see additional content from previously iTunes-shy providers arriving in succession.

Update: Deadwood ($2.99) and Flight of the Conchords ($1.99) are also available with "much more" apparently in the works.

Update 2: Apple just released the PR.

[Thanks, Turki]

[Eric M. @ May 13th 2008 1:14AM]

HBO owned Apple on this one.

[gabe @ May 13th 2008 1:25AM]

are we better off purchasing the dvd collections than per episode?

[Ridley @ May 13th 2008 1:57AM]

How exactly did they get "owned?" This totally makes sense, HBO is not free programming like NBC is, so it makes complete sense to pay extra for it. HBO costs what, $10–$18 per month? NBC doesn't cost a thing. So to pay $1 more per episode seems cheap by comparison.

NBC seems to be the one that got "pooned."

[caleb @ May 13th 2008 3:10AM]

The reason HBO is not free is because there are no commercials. But, surprise! There are no commercials in iTunes shows from NBC either.

[MattyG @ May 13th 2008 5:01AM]

ah so HBO is the american version of the BBC where there's no commercials either but everyone gets to pay for it via tv licensing

[Mike10010100 @ May 13th 2008 6:05AM]

You guys still download video? Even through torrents, the quality is so bad. I prefer to get the video from my local library and rip it to my computer. Full quality, and with a little tweaking, I can get it onto my iPod.

[Richy @ May 13th 2008 7:45AM]

@Mike148: I've only downloaded (well, rented) a few iTMS films, and can say that the quality is actually very good, all things considered. The bitrate may not be DVD high (or BluRay high for the HD stuff), but on a 37" 720p LCD-TV it's good enough. Waaay better than the overly compressed crap I get from Sky (in the UK)..

[Will @ May 13th 2008 8:57AM]

@MattyG. No, you only pay for it if you want it. It's a subscription channel.

[Aron T @ May 13th 2008 9:30AM]

That and you're totally ignoring the fact that the average episode of the Sopranos clocks in shy of 1 1/2 hours! Are you going to tell me crummy network television is worth the same as the gold that is The Sopranos!?

[NineT9 @ May 13th 2008 1:14AM]

use me to say all your negative stuff, since thats what ppl do on engadget... reply to the top posters so their negative opinion gets heard

[Billy Fiul @ May 13th 2008 3:20AM]

So when can we expect episodes of Curb to show up?

Oops, I didn't mean to reply to this post. Silly me!

[W00ter @ May 13th 2008 1:15AM]

W00t!

Apple bent over on its pricing model. I suppose content is king...

[THJ @ May 13th 2008 12:30PM]

Wait, so you're happy that Apple caved and consumers have to pay MORE for content?

I confused.

[Kale @ May 13th 2008 1:15AM]

oh, right,
people will spend 3 dollars for a single epsiode!

[Josh @ May 13th 2008 2:42AM]

Sad thing is that Apple and/or HBO will release figures next month that says they will.

[JimD @ May 13th 2008 1:15AM]

I think the pricing is BS. $2.99 per episode? I don't think so.

[Chris @ May 13th 2008 1:20AM]

They can get away with it because of the stupid people that will pay for it. I just don't understand some people.

[Billy Fiul @ May 13th 2008 3:22AM]

People are stupid because they pay for stuff? Is that what you're saying?

[fanman @ May 13th 2008 4:08AM]

Come over to the UK, were in appleland $1 = £1!

[Spawn Xe @ May 15th 2008 7:47AM]

2.99 is a fkin steep... i mean, on season they'd show 4 a month? so thats $12 a month for 1 series if you buy one each week... hardley fair when you consider the $10-18 monthly subscription and you get an ass load of other TV shows.

TV doesn't have the same replay value as music either, so not a fair comparison. But anyway, thank your lucky stars yanky-pals.. us poor sops in the UK get the privelage of equal conversion on this type of s**t.. and no i dont mean currency conversion.. i mean if you pay $3 we pay £3 which is essentially $6!!.

[John @ May 13th 2008 8:47AM]

Right, like we Americans have an obligation to devalue our currency more by pricing to your standards.

[Tim F. @ May 13th 2008 1:27AM]

I don't understand why people are acting as if the walls of Jericho have fallen down. There are already examples of variable pricing in PBS programming. There have always been rare examples of variable pricing in iTunes. Apple caves when it wants the content and thinks it's worth it. That doesn't mean Apple isn't still going to tell NBC we don't need you as much as you need me.

[AJ in the East Bay @ May 13th 2008 1:33AM]

P0wnd by variable pricing!!

[Chris @ May 13th 2008 1:37AM]

I was thinking that... and I really hope you and I are right. Apple needs to stand firm on this thing w/ NBC.

HBO DVDs already go for a lot more than most network programming boxsets... this is about 70$ for 24 episodes... still might be cheaper to buy the boxset than to download it, but like people above said, some people buy shit for way more than they should- that's why I made a 100$ profit selling a Wii on eBay. :-)

[Chris @ May 13th 2008 1:37AM]

whoops, that was supposed to be in response to Tim F.

[Adam @ May 13th 2008 1:50AM]

NOT $70 for 24 ... $70 for 12 episodes! HBO series are a lot shorter than other networks!

[IndiaTech @ May 13th 2008 1:44AM]

What's so special about it? itunes Store had non standard pricing for a long time now. For EG:
NFL Games: $2.99 for 1 hour weekly recap episodes, $1.99 for 15 minute weekly recap episodes.
College Bowl Games: $2.99 for the full game. Have been for over an year now.
History Channel Specials: $3.99 for 1 hour 30 minute episodes.

Also, if you are buying a complete season and if the DVD is available in the market then the price of such shows is less.
EG: Avatar: The Last Air Bender, Season 1. $29.99 for the complete season. (20 episodes).

The only thing special is iTunes just added HBO to its library.

[Ian @ May 13th 2008 1:48AM]

Enjoy your drm infested nodef content folks. Bleh.

[Billy Fiul @ May 13th 2008 3:25AM]

I'm sensing discontentment.

[007baf @ May 13th 2008 1:58AM]

I don't really care about the price. $1.99 or $2.99, whatever. What beguiles me is why, and this is not limited to HBO, iTunes only offers a sliver of the content available on the various networks. I went through most of the networks and very few had more than 1 page of shows. We know they have much more to offer.

See if Apple TV is going to take off, it's got to have an overwhelming library. Not a sampler.

Where's "Band of Brothers" and the other great programs of HBO? Or where is "Top Gear" for BBC America? Well, you get the idea.

The kids out there will still have their $.99 and $1.99 standard fare, but I expect to pay a premium for premium programming. Just because iTunes is selling more than Wal-Mart doesn't mean it has to pick up the crappy habits of Wal-Mart's purchasing agents going after rubbish just to offer something cheap.

[Archbob @ May 13th 2008 2:05AM]

Its still way too expensive because most people will just torrent this stuff anyways.

[Curtis Prime @ May 13th 2008 2:11AM]

I, for one, prefer getting my content legally. Mean if you are going to take time to watch something, then buy it. Otherwise don't bother cause you don't care about enough anyway.

[Reader @ May 13th 2008 2:21AM]

There are a lot of good arguments for getting content legally, I don't think yours is one, Curtis.

[Mitch @ May 13th 2008 2:40AM]

@Curtis

This doesn't have to do with HBO, but last time I checked NBC is free, if I miss an episode of The Office for example, why should I then have to pay to see it?

[pfromg @ May 13th 2008 2:42AM]

>Its still way too expensive because most people will just

not want to pay 2.99 to watch a single episode of a TV series !

Anyone who pays that money to watch watch a TV episode and ever complains about the high price of anything , ever again, need to shut the f*ck up. if you have $3 to watch a stupid TV episode, you have $10 for a gallon of fuel.

Luckily , this wave hasn't hit Europe yet.

[Craig @ May 13th 2008 6:33AM]

@Mitch, you don't have to pay to watch your missed Office eps, NBC will let you do it for free via hulu.com.

[nz @ May 13th 2008 7:25AM]

NBC is not "free." One of the big problems they are having is that their revenue stream -- commercials -- are being devalued with iTunes, DVRs, etc. So, if you torrent the NBC video, just make sure you are watching the commercials on NBC as well. Then your argument holds up fine.

[MosquitoControl @ May 13th 2008 10:22AM]

Curtis, your logic really, really fails.

With NBC, if you missed an episode, you missed the commercials. So if you download it you're getting the episode without seeing the ads. You're seeing the episode for free, whereas you usually see it in exchange for a bit of your time.

If you want to rationalize piracy, rationalize it with HBO. If you already pay for HBO, and you miss an episode, downloading it isn't that big a deal, arguably, because you've already paid for it. On the other hand, you paid to see it at a certain time, and you missed it, so maybe that argument doesn't hold water.

Best rationalizing would be pirating HBO despite paying for HBO On-Demand. But even then, you're paying to see HBO on one box and then watching it on another, which isn't in the contract you signed up for.

[Mobile Phone Diva @ May 13th 2008 1:17PM]

It may not truly be free Mitch, since most people use cable or satellite these days. We pay one way or another for TV these days.

[Matt @ May 13th 2008 2:18AM]

Although i have all of the episodes on dvd I really would love to see HBO add Entourage added to the iTunes Store

[Zachary @ May 13th 2008 2:19AM]

I just bought season one of The Wire... after enjoying this excellent show for free now I finally get to pay for it easily.

[Billy Fiul @ May 13th 2008 3:24AM]

Good for you, you're helping our economy. Pirates could learn a lesson from you, sir.

[Britboyj27 @ May 13th 2008 2:57AM]

Where's the HD?

[Billy Fiul @ May 13th 2008 3:23AM]

Ask your cable company.

[Francisco @ May 13th 2008 3:36AM]

You know, I was using iTunes Store to download TV Shows as I moved to Spain but then I got sick of the country restrictions and having to buy Gift Card over eBay to bypass it. It would take a couple days for new episode to be aired on iTunes which was annoying as well. My answer to this new price tag is just one now. Torrent!

[happy_penguin @ May 13th 2008 4:50AM]

Amazon is currently selling Season 6 for $51.99. At $2.99 per episode, the season from iTunes costs $26.91. Unless I'm missing something, the pricing seems fair.

[kal326 @ May 13th 2008 11:59AM]

@happy_penguin
Yeah, you are, its called DRM. You pay $26.91 to play your video on what Apple/iTunes says you can. For $51 you get physical media that is much easier to transfer to a wide variety of YOUR personal devices.

[happy_penguin @ May 13th 2008 12:15PM]

Then you are paying half the price for something that is DRM'ed and already encoded to transfer on your Apple devices, if that is what you own. You make it sound easy to encode DVD movies into anything you want but DVD is in fact a DRM'ed media and breaking that code is a federal crime and once you do that it takes quite a long time to encode the movie to other formats.

[Ethan @ May 13th 2008 5:06AM]

They're all the wrong price anyway. HBO's subscription has to be competitive, and NBC's advertisers get to haggle on what to pay. Once we get a decent competitor in, we won't have to be gouged to simply avoid dodging all the filler and irrelevance on the gogglebox.

[CoffeeKid @ May 13th 2008 5:54AM]

If Apple is introducing "flexible" pricing, then I hope it goes both ways. They've been adding a rash of "classic" tv shows lately, and while it's all nostalgic and such to watch Bewitched and Dukes of Hazzard, the pricing, especially for a season, is absolutely obscene considering you're getting

a) craptastic quality video,
b) DRM'ed through the roof.

And the same box sets are available at your local box shaped store for $10, $15, $20.

So the flexible pricing would be fine, if it works both ways - these old shows should be 99 cents each, and a season price that's consummate with what the DVD sets are (and always less than the DVD sets).