Boom.

Apple aimed its PR howitzer directly at NBC Universal this morning when it announced that it would not be selling NBC shows for the fall season on the iTunes Store. Just hours earlier Friday’s New York Times had revealed NBC’s intent not to renew its iTunes Store contract when it expires in December. That Apple would respond so swiftly and so publicly – something it rarely does -- can only mean that Steve Jobs is really, really annoyed with NBC.

In explaining its actions, Apple made sure to portray NBC in the worst possible light: “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.”

This dispute is more evidence of the discontent among iTunes’ music and video content suppliers with the ironclad pricing terms that Apple has imposed upon them. We saw it just a few weeks ago when Universal Music Group said it planned to sell songs without copyright protection on just about every music service except iTunes. The music and video companies are determined to break Apple’s dominance of the digital entertainment market so they can re-mold the terms to their liking.

Apple refuses to compromise on its philosophy that a consumer-friendly iTunes encourages people to buy more. Raising prices, charging more for popular items and forcing people to buy bundles of TV shows rather than a la carte (which NBC had wanted, according to the Times article) will deter sales and ultimately result in lower profits, Apple believes.

Universal Music and NBC have made it very clear they strongly disagree and will move away from the iTunes model with or without Apple’s cooperation. Meanwhile, Apple stands to lose a provider responsible for three of its top 10 best selling TV shows last season and 30 percent of its TV show sales (those stats are straight from Apple’s press release). NBC will lose iTunes considerable market clout and exposure to younger viewers, a demographic the TV networks have been struggling to attract and hold. The network has plans to start offering its shows on a service to be launched in October called Hulu.com, but it’s unlikely sales on that site will come close to matching sales on iTunes.

The biggest losers are you and me, people who enjoy the ability to download single episodes of “The Office,” “Heroes,” or “Battlestar Galactica” for $1.99 to watch at our convenience. Yes, “Battlestar Galactica” is affected because NBC owns the Sci-Fi Network. It also owns the USA Network, which shows the marvelous “Monk.” I personally am royally ticked off about this because I have downloaded episodes of both “Monk” and “Battlestar Galactica” when I’ve missed the initial broadcast.

NBC’s Hulu experiment worries me, too. Will they adopt the DRM-crippled Windows Media format, locking out Mac users? And if they’re going to charge $4.99 per episode, I wouldn’t use the service anyway. That’s a 250 percent increase, for Pete’s sake. Even CEO salaries don’t go up that fast. Think about it: you can buy the 16 episodes of Season 5 of “Monk” for $29.95 from the iTunes Store. You can buy the “Monk” Season 5 DVD from Amazon.com for $36.99. If you bought those episodes at NBC’s rates, you’d pay $79.84. Even at $2.99 per episode you’d pay $47.84. What are they thinking?

Rather than be fleeced, consumers will do one of two things. Either they’ll stop watching or they’ll find another, cheaper alternative. Maybe they’ll buy Tivos. Maybe they’ll steal it over the Internet, as people have done with music. Until now video piracy hasn’t been as widespread as music piracy. But start charging $4.99 per show and watch how fast it grows. With broadband connections commonplace and video compression codecs improving, the TV networks should be wary of angering their customers. The music industry still hasn’t recovered from piracy that their numerous errors in dealing with it.

If the rebellious trend among content providers continues, the iTunes Store could be in for a rough ride. True, it doesn’t comprise a huge part of Apple’s profits, but it is an integral part of the Apple ecosystem that marries hardware, software and retailing. Harm to the iTunes Store could affect the iPod business as well as any video ventures the company almost certainly has in development.

NBC’s efforts to circumvent the iTunes Store could well backfire. For Apple’s sake – and ours – I hope it does.