NBC Seeks Post-Apple Juice

NBC aims to take a bite out of Apple (AAPL Quote - Cramer on AAPL - Stock Picks).

The network, owned by General Electric (GE Quote - Cramer on GE - Stock Picks), plans to roll out a free online downloading service allowing consumers access to its hit TV shows, such as Heroes and The Office.

The service, called NBC Direct, will offer downloads with embedded advertisements that cannot be skipped. The test version will be launched in October and expanded to let consumers subscribe to shows and download them automatically. Seven days after a show's debut, the file will expire.

NBC recently declined to renew its contract with Apple's popular download service, iTunes, where customers could pay a small fee to download the shows. The contract runs through the end of the year, but as a result of the move Apple said it wouldn't show any of NBC's shows for the new fall season.

At first, the NBC service will be available only to computers running Microsoft's (MSFT Quote - Cramer on MSFT - Stock Picks) Windows software, but NBC said it plans to make it available to users of Apple's Mac computers in the future.

NBC sells episodes for permanent download on its Web site, and it streams them for free. The company is also launching a video site called Hulu in partnership with News Corp.'s (NWS.A Quote - Cramer on NWS.A - Stock Picks) Fox Broadcasting and with a slew of distribution partners such as Time Warner's (TWX Quote - Cramer on TWX - Stock Picks) AOL, Comcast (CMCSA Quote - Cramer on CMCSA - Stock Picks), Microsoft's MSN, News Corp.'s MySpace and Yahoo! (YHOO Quote - Cramer on YHOO - Stock Picks).

That effort is aimed at competing with Google's (GOOG Quote - Cramer on GOOG - Stock Picks) popular video Web site YouTube.