A report issued by
Forrester Research suggests that contrary to conventional wisdom (or at least the comments here at TUAW), Apple is the loser in their
feud with NBC-Universal. The on-going fight, which reached fruition last week, as all
all NBC-Universal content was removed from iTunes, hurts Apple more than it hurts NBC. James McQuivey, an analyst for Forrest Research, urges Apple to make-up with NBC, otherwise they risk losing their spot as a major source in the distribution of online broadcast content. Why? Because although iTunes dominates the world of digital music sales, the same cannot be said for iTunes video downloads.
According to the report, which was quoted by
CNET, Apple relies on NBC to deliver 30% of their video download sales. This is in line with the
40% figure claimed by NBC in October (I say we split the difference at 35 or call it a third). Furthermore, a Forrester study revealed that only 19% of users buy video content (either TV shows or full length movies) from iTunes and of that 19%, the average amount spent on videos is $30. Meanwhile, competing pay services like Amazon Unbox and the free offerings provided by the networks own websites and through services like the Fox and NBC collaboration
Hulu.com make paying for an iTunes download, just so you can watch it on an iPod or Apple TV, less inviting or appealing to users.
TUAW reader Eric F sent in a note letting us know that "Safari Adblock allows you to watch Hulu programming completely commercial free!" I gave it a try. I downloaded a copy of Adblock from its SourceForge repository, installed it, activated it, and fired up Hulu. A nearly complete episode of Buffy later, I can confirm that I wasn't shown commercials. 
