Frankly, with all of these limitations I’m surprised they even let you watch the show, period.
You must have a Windows PC to view the shows. Shows cost $.99 and must be watched within 24 hours of downloading (again, not a very good option for travelers). Only a single show is currently offered – Survivor – and you must be in the U.S. See Mike Davidson for more on this.ĬBS is going with downloads, through their CBS On Demand project. So in the end, ABC is offering a nice way for me to watch time-shifted shows on my PC-enabled living room television, but not much else. Also, There are a number of short commercials that cannot be skipped. You can’t take these with you on a laptop or other device and watch them while on a plane, or otherwise offline. On the minus side, and these are big ones, you must be online to view the show. On the plus side, ABC’s offering is browser and platform agnostic, and are free. The shows are viewable in 400×700 Flash format. for no charge: Lost, Desperate Housewives, Alias, and Commander in Chief. CBS, Fox and ABC are all experimenting with their own direct downloads or streaming.ĪBC is offering streaming versions of a number of its hit shows to viewers within the U.S. The networks, though, are hoping that iTunes will not be the only way people watch TV on their computers. Format for purchased Videos is 128 kbit/s Protected MPEG-4 video.īy January 2006, iTunes offered over 40 television shows for download, including, most recently, additions from Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and MTV with episodes of such shows as the Daily Show, Spongebob Squarepants, South Park, and Punk’d.
iTunes also gives the ability to view Apple’s large collection of movie trailers. Since that time, the collection has expanded with NBC Universal, USA Network, Sci-Fi Channel shows, and Viacom, in addition to further Disney-owned networks’ shows. New shows are available 24 hours after the initial broadcast.
iTunes initially offered a selection of several thousand music videos and five TV shows, including most notably ABC’s Lost and Desperate Housewives, as well as the collection from past seasons.
On October 12 2005, Apple introduced iTunes 6.0 which added support for purchasing and viewing of video content from the iTunes Music Store.