An Apple spokesperson has given word that the new episodes of House will not be available on iTunes. This was expected considering the main company producing the show, NBC Universal, has decided not to renew its contract with Apple which expires this December.

Apple has given word that negotiations for a contract renewal fell through because the production company wanted more than double the wholesale price for each episode. A move which would have pushed the price of each show to US$ 4.99. NBC Universal seems to have already found other means of distributing their content online with Hulu, an upcoming joint online video venture with News Corp. that will be challenging YouTube for market dominance once it goes live.

The company pulling out its content has many speculating regarding its impact on the popularity of Apple's media service. Considering that NBC Universal content is credited for 40 percent of all video downloads on iTunes, there might be a very big drop in user downloads once the split has been completed.