“There would be no question that I would be perfect to run it,” Karmazin said. “But there is no chance that I will ever take another job outside of Sirius XM. I just renewed my contract. It’s exactly what I want.”

Exactly what he wants, except maybe for that perennially-under-a-dollar share price–though according to Karmazin, that’s going to change. “I think today, you’ll start to see quarter after quarter of growth,” he said. “You’ll see us making free cash flow. You’ll see us with…over $2.5 billion of revenue. We’ll start to make money, and we’ll start to keep investing in content. And I think our future will be great.”

Unassuming guy, that Karmazin…

We’ve never told anyone they can’t lower prices. We’re glad to have NBC back and they are participating under the same terms with all of the other content providers.”

– Apple VP Eddy Cue says that NBC Universal’s iron will ended up being quite a bit more flexible than the flexible iTunes pricing scheme it claims to have won from Apple

I got into a pretty public fight with Steve Jobs about our TV. We were the market share leader at iTunes, we had 35 percent of the market share at the iTunes store. What we said to Steve and his team was that we wanted there to be some variable pricing. There’s no example in the world of where the retailer sets the price–there’s no example, except at Apple. We’re very conscious of what happened in the music industry. … We offered do a test with one show, you pick the show, I don’t care, and charge $2.99 for that and everything else at $1.99, and in fact we’ll give you the whole library at $0.99, and they didn’t want to do it. Granted none of it is as mobile and successful as iTunes. … We agreed to put up our film stuff on Apple just a few weeks ago and the reason we did that is variable pricing.”

–NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker, Feb. 27, 2008

Apple today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes Store. The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99.”

–Apple Press Release, Aug. 31, 2007

We’ve said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple. We’re great fans of Steve Jobs.”

–Zucker, Jan. 20, 2008

Apple has destroyed the music business–in terms of pricing–and if we don’t take control, they’ll do the same thing on the video side.”

–Zucker, Oct. 28, 2007

Nearly a year after being eighty-sixed from Apple’s iTunes store over a pricing dispute, NBC Universal is returning to the service, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced Tuesday. Beginning immediately, NBCU programs in standard definition will be available from iTunes at a price of $1.99 per episode, programs in high definition for $2.99 per episode. Catalog titles will be sold for 99 cents.

It’s not entirely clear what led to the warming of relations between the two companies, though NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker said the new cooperation was due to a concession from Apple (AAPL). “What happened a year ago is we got into a dispute over pricing and thought there should be flexible pricing on the television content in the iTunes store,” he told CNBC. “They didn’t want to, we withdrew our content. The fact is, we have flexible pricing, and the programs will be on there at the 99 cents price point, $1.99 price point, and for HD episodes of the program, that will cost $2.99. So basically we were able to achieve our goal that not all contents should be of the same value. When we achieved that, we were happy to be on iTunes.”

That’s certainly an interesting re-imagining of NBCU’s recent negotiations with Apple. But it’s not entirely accurate. Because while Apple did agree to flexible pricing for NBCU (GE) programs on iTunes, it didn’t really agree to the flexible-pricing scheme the network was seeking. NBCU wanted flexible pricing based on popularity. What it got is flexible pricing based on video definition, which Apple had already agreed to with other networks. NBCU wanted complete price variance. It didn’t get it. The company also wanted Apple to double the wholesale price it pays for each TV episode sold on iTunes. And it clearly didn’t get that either, because if it had, “The Office” would be priced at $4.99 per episode instead of its current $1.99./$2.99–according to Apple, anyway.

So sure, NBCU got flexible pricing. But it got it on Apple’s terms, which presumably started looking quite a bit more attractive when the network’s other online video distribution deals didn’t prove to be as successful as it had hoped.

This morning the video site, which is jointly owned by NBC Universal (GE) and News Corp. (NWS) (which also owns Dow Jones and this site), said it will offer full episodes of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and the “Colbert Report” beginning today. The deal, which brings the popular late-night satirists to the site just in time for the presidential election, is something of a surprise, since Comedy Central parent company Viacom (VIA) has so far refused to sign on to Hulu.

But that may change if this first tentative experiment bears fruit. “I think with success breeds success. It could open some other doors,” said Erik Flannigan, executive vice president of digital media at MTV Networks, the Viacom division that runs Comedy Central. “Hulu in many ways may put the shows in front of some people who might be more casual viewers but who might be interested in what’s going on with the elections.”

Sources close to the network tell Portfolio.com that Apple will soon bring its programming to iTunes along with a separate and distinct pricing structure. No word yet on what that pricing structure is, but presumably it’s a lot more favorable than the one NBC Universal had.

An interesting move for Apple, and one that marks a shift in the company’s hard-line views of pricing. Perhaps the HBO arrangement is unique, perhaps not. But even if it is, it won’t be long before the entire content industry begins demanding similar deals.

This week members of the House Judiciary Committee passed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (called “PRO IP” groan…) Act of 2007, legislation that would create an “anti-piracy czar” at the White House level, a separate IP-enforcement division at the Justice Department and ratchet up already high civil penalties for copyright infringement.

The measure is backed by many of the most powerful politicians on the House Judiciary Committee, including John Conyers (D., Mich.), Lamar Smith (R., Texas) and “Hollywood” Howard Berman (D., Calif.), the content cartel and, of course, Zucker, who likes to tell everyone that it dramatically advances the cause of protecting innovation, technological invention and creativity.

Said Zucker, “This is such an important step in combating this incredibly serious piracy and counterfeiting problem that’s getting worse, not better.”

In Zucker’s eyes, maybe. But not in the eyes of consumer folks like Google Senior Copyright Counsel William Patry who calls Pro IP “the most outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the U.S.” and consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge which feels it is in sore need of adjustment.:

This bill takes already extraordinary copyright damages and increases them, expanding the threat of litigation intended to stifle competition and innovation. … Increasing penalties is one of the least necessary, and quite possibly counterproductive, actions the committee could take, particularly when current law is adequate to deal with most infringement issues and because the higher penalties serve only to force faster and larger settlements potentially from innovators. … Instead of following the course of this bill, the committee should look to the future, to a more realistic and rational copyright regime that can adapt pre-VCR copyright laws to a post-YouTube world.”

I got into a pretty public fight with Steve Jobs about our TV. We were the market share leader at iTunes, we had 35% of the market share at the iTunes store. What we said to Steve and his team was that we wanted there to be some variable pricing. There’s no example in the world of where the retailer sets the price–there’s no example, except at Apple. We’re very conscious of what happened in the music industry. … We offered do a test with one show, you pick the show, I don’t care, and charge $2.99 for that and everything else at $1.99, and in fact we’ll give you the whole library at $0.99, and they didn’t want to do it. Granted none of it is as mobile and successful as iTunes. … We agreed to put up our film stuff on Apple just a few weeks ago and the reason we did that is variable pricing.”

–NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker, Feb. 27

Apple today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes Store. The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99.”

–Apple Press Release, Aug. 31, 2007

We’ve said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple. We’re great fans of Steve Jobs.”

–Zucker, Jan. 20

Apple has destroyed the music business–in terms of pricing–and if we don’t take control, they’ll do the same thing on the video side.”

–Zucker, Oct. 28, 2007

The company, which just acquired Dow Jones (owner of this site) and which posted a moderate rise in fiscal second-quarter profit yesterday, has no plans to yank Yahoo from the jaws of Microsoft. “We are definitely not going to make a bid for Yahoo,” News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch said during a conference call to discuss the company’s earnings. “We’re not really interested at this stage.”

So who is interested? Well, apparently no one. Comcast has declined to make an offer, NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker dismissed rumors that NBC was considering a bid during a conference call with JPMorgan analysts earlier this week, and the financing and operational risks are likely too high for a private-equity bidder. Seems the $44.6 billion price tag Microsoft’s slapped on Yahoo has given everyone a bit of sticker shock.

Everyone but Google, that is. And Google can’t really make an offer for Yahoo. With its absolute dominance of the search market, the “troubling questions” a Yahoo-Google alliance would raise are far, far more troubling than the “troubling questions” Google claims Microsoft’s hostile bid for Yahoo raises.

So what are these “many options” Yahoo claims to be evaluating? There are only two, it seems:

1. Accept the deal.
2. Turn it down flat and then accept under duress after an acrimonious shareholders meeting.

They’re also more likely to buy CDs. Of all Mac users surveyed by NPD, 50% paid to download music during the third quarter of 2007 compared to just 16% of PC users. During the same period, more than 32% of Mac users purchased CDs, compared to just 28% of PC users. “There’s still a cultural divide between Apple consumers and the rest of the computing world, and that’s especially apparent when it comes to the way they interact with music,” said NPD Group analyst Russ Crupnick. “Mac users are not only more active in digital music, they are also more likely to buy CDs.”

Course, they’re also “more likely” to have Apple’s iTunes digital music store pre-installed on their machines. That might have something to do with the discrepancy here as well.

In any event, it would seem that, contrary to the claims of NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker, Apple hasn’t “destroyed the music business.” “While the market for digital music is growing, it’s growing slower than many would like it to–CD sales are still declining and digital music has not entirely replaced those lost sales,” Crupnick added. “The more consumers become comfortable paying for digital music, the more chance they will evangelize to others. And at this point in the game, it’s the growing base of Apple consumers that are the industry’s low-hanging fruit when it comes to migrating from physical CDs to digital music.”

Now SanDisk. Today, NBC U said it would make its shows available on SanDisk’s recently launched Fanfare PC-to-TV video player service. Come January, consumers will be able to download episodes of NBC series they can no longer purchase on iTunes, and transfer them to their TVs via SanDisk’s TakeTV product.

“Fanfare is going to be an iTunes-like store for us,” NBC U’s president of digital distribution, Jean-Briac Perrette, told Silicon Alley Insider. But with one noteworthy difference: NBC U controls pricing. “The business model is one we like,” said Perrette. “It’s normal for content owners to control the wholesale price of their content. This is no different than any other wholesale relationship; it’s not different in the sense that Wal-Mart decides to price DVDs at a loss. Ultimately we still set the wholesale price.”