This weekend, developers, consumers, and companies will finally get entry to the iPad party. Unfortunately, there are still those uninterested in the affair—we’ve already seen companies like Random House hesitate. Now, NBC has announced its intention to keep full episodes of TV off the iPad—at least for the time being.
According to The New York Times , NBC last week showed a Times reporter an iPad-friendly version of its streaming-video site. At the end of this discussion, an NBC executive noted that full-episode streaming of popular shows was in the works and would be coming around late April.
But it was not to be. On Thursday, the Times reported that NBC had dropped all interest in full episode streaming “at this time,” according to an anonymous NBC official.
Why the change of heart, especially considering the recent iPad app releases from fellow TV giant ABC and online rental company Netflix? It may be a purely financial decision, but this reporter suspects it may have more to do with NBC’s involvement with Hulu, or its new parent company, Comcast. If Hulu is indeed planning on any sort of iPad paywall trial, it would be bad form to have the same content available elsewhere for free. Similarly, Comcast may want to avoid giving away content for free that it could otherwise bundle with its TV Everywhere service.
Alas, the end result: if you want to watch NBC on your iPad, you’ll have to resort to alternative means such as iTunes for now.