NBC and ABC Expand Free Web Distribution

More grist for the free-content triumphalists: NBC is set to start offering free downloads of its shows, while ABC has made a deal to put free streams of its programs on AOL.

NBC says its move is meant to draw younger views, but it also looks like a slap at iTunes, from which it walked away three weeks ago. (Or, if you assume NBC and iTunes will come back to the negotiating table, eventually, it could be a bargaining gambit.)

It's getting harder and harder to keep track of whose shows are available where these days, and that's part of the reason I think it was a mistake for NBC to part ways with iTunes, no matter how bad a deal it thought it was getting. And I'm not the only one who thinks so:

Chris Crotty, an analyst for iSuppli, an independent firm that specializes in analysis of new electronic media, said of the NBC move, "I think it's a stretch." He argued that consumers have shown they are extremely happy with the iTunes service and that it would not be attractive to consumers to have to range far and wide over a number of services to find the programs they want to download.

"It's not just a shift from a supermarket to a mom-and-pop story, it's a shift to one store that only sells bread, another store that only sells dairy products. The consumers have decided they want to get their content from iTunes."

As I said before, Apple has an uncanny knack for understanding how consumers want to interact with new technologies. NBC would do well to follow its lead. Any short-term victories it wins against iTunes will be Pyrrhic ones.