HBO is finally starting to recognize the Internet as one of the ways people watch TV. Three months after inviting viewers to watch its series "In Treatment" for free on its Web site, it has begun selling copies of some of its shows on Apple's iTunes...

In the second deviation from its standard operating procedure in as many weeks, Apple Inc. has made popular HBO TV shows, including The Sopranos and Deadwood, available over iTunes at variable prices.

The company announced some of the HBO shows, including Sex and the City, Flight of the Conchords and The Wire, will be available for the standard iTunes price of $1.99 US per episode. Other shows, including The Sopranos, Deadwood and Rome, will be available for download at the higher price of $2.99 US per episode.

The change is notable because Apple has butted heads with television networks over variable pricing in the past. NBC Universal last year pulled its shows from iTunes because Apple was unwilling to charge higher prices for more popular shows. NBC wanted to sell episodes of newer, highly rated shows for more than the standard $1.99 US each.

The network's chief executive officer Jeff Zucker told Variety magazine that NBC's demands were “modest” and complained that Steve Jobs was undervaluing video content in order to sell more iPods.

“We don’t want to replace the dollars we were making in the analog world with pennies on the digital side,” he said.

So far, the HBO shows are available only through the iTunes...
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