Daily Variety, citing “three people familiar with the proposal”, revealed that the Cupertino, CA-based giant is seeking to cut prices for the TV episodes it sells through iTunes, to just $0.99.

Currently, Apple’s offering is 1.99 dollars for every downloaded episode, which is the reason behind iTunes’ video downloading section lag when it is compared to the music downloading section. Music tracks can be purchased for 99 cents at iTunes and Apple’s move with the TV episodes is probably aimed at emulating the success the music business enjoys.

It appears that NBC’s precipitated departure from iTunes, announced last week has a lot to do with this potential price cut, which has a strong credibility in the light of the jaw-dropping announcement from September 5, in San Francisco, where Apple astounded the audience with the $200 reduction for the iPhone.

“Previous reports on the Apple-NBC kerfuffle have focused on Apple's claims that NBC wants to dramatically increase the price consumer pays for iTunes content (a charge NBC has denied, arguing it simply wants more pricing flexibility).

Apple's argument to studios and nets has been that they will end up making more money from digital downloads under the new proposal. Company believes the volume of sales for TV shows will rise dramatically, offsetting the impact of the price cut,” writes Josef Adalian, from Variety.

Apple is famous for its tight grip on the pricing it applies to music tracks, despite record companies’ desire for a more “flexible pricing”, which should have allowed them to perceive more money from new songs.

Digital music still makes up the bulk of the business for iTunes, which ranks as the No. 3 music retailer behind only Wal-Mart and Best Buy. iTunes boasts a catalog of some 6 million songs for sale.

”If cooler heads prevail, it seems possible Apple and the nets will come to a settlement in which shows are sold via tiered pricing, perhaps 99¢ for library titles, $1.99 for current hits and $2.99 for megahits or shows on premium cablers such as HBO or Showtime,” said Adalian.