While it might not have quite the celebrity appeal of the Brad Pitt / Jennifer Aniston / Angelina Jolie saga that continues to seep into the tabloids, what’s going on with NBC, Apple, and Amazon right now is fairly interesting in it’s own right.

In short, NBC used to distribute it TV content through Apple (i.e. iTunes), and accounted for something to the tune of 30% of iTune’s sales. They wanted to raise the prices and bundle content together, Apple said no way, NBC bid adieu, and has now hooked up with Amazon to save the children in Afr… I mean, to sell their “traditional” TV content online.

I’m of mixed feelings about this, being a long time fan on Friends and all. On one hand, I can kind of see why Apple thought a sudden increase in the downloading price from $1.99 to $4.99 might be a bit steep. On the other, I can totally understand why content providers are a little uncomfortable with Apple’s “our way or the highway, we set the prices here buster!” approach… what’s so wrong with variable pricing anyway? Or bundling? Or just SOME sort of distribution network where EVERY content provider can sell anything they want, at any price they want, bundled with anything they want, to whoever wants it?

Maybe it wouldn’t work – maybe all the networks would price everything at a bazillion dollars and we’d all end up watching I Love Lucy re-runs over the antenna in time. But maybe, just maybe, if some of these new online retailers simply opened up and let content providers sell whatever they wanted, the market would evolve naturally – and maybe Amazon is doing just that.