A article today in the Financial Times mentions how Apple is supposedly pressuring TV networks to cut their episode pricing in half, from $1.99 to $1. If true this indicates that Apple is not selling that much TV content on iTunes. While Apple doesn’t offer such information, it is known that Apple sold 15 million TV episodes in February 2006, 50 million in January 2007 and 200 million in October 2008. Using this data I projected in a post back in November 2009 that Apple should have sold around 86 million episodes by now.

Of course extrapolating this trend  is a huge assumption since iTunes membership has skyrocketed since 2007 and sales rates may have jumped soon after October 2008. However if that were the case Apple probably would have sent out some press releases in 2009 concerning TV episode sales and none were issued.

The bottom line is that Apple needs to rework its video strategy. Why should iTunes customers pay $1.99 for a one-hour TV episode when they can spend the same amount for a game that they can play hours with? Not unless they watch the episode several times a week will the two options equate and I think a good episode is worth watching around once every three months. In any case repeat viewing would require a user to store episodes (iTunes TV episodes take up half a gigabyte of drive space) resulting in another deterrent.

It is also possible that Apple’s current roster of video platforms (iMac, MacBook, iPod Classic, iTouch, iPhone, etc.) are not compelling enough for video watching due to portability in the case of the computers or due to screen size in the case of the portable devices. Tomorrow a new device is being presented by Apple which may usher in an ideal new vessel for consuming video. It may also persuade Apple’s TV production partners to go along with the new iTunes pricing plan.