iTunes cuts the price of 24. A sign of falling prices?

I received an unexpected email tonight from the iTunes Store, telling me that my season pass to the Fox show 24 had been reduced in price from $67.99 to $59.99. Even stranger, Apple decided to give me a $10 iTunes gift certificate because of it (that’s more than the price reduction).

I have absolutely no idea what that’s all about, and I’m not complaining, but it seems a bit odd. You might think Apple or Fox would move to reduce the price of the show if it weren’t selling well, but 24 season 7 (the season in question) is currently the seventh most popular television series on iTunes. It’s been in the top 10 even since in debuted in January.

Perhaps it was just the high definition version of the show that was lagging in sales. After all, it looks like the price of the standard definition version remains unchanged at $44.99. $67.99 did seem a bit high, but when you consider that there are 24 episodes that are each around 45 minutes long, whereas a show like The Office will only have 20 episodes, each about 20 minutes long, for only eight dollars less, it actually seemed like an okay deal.

I’m sure Apple will eventually offer one version of each show — an HD version that scales down if you don’t have an HD TV. I’ve noticed that when I’m downloading a lot of these shows in HD, it will actually download both the standard definition and high-definition versions, which seems kind of silly.

When that consolidation happens, hopefully the prices will continue to come down. Paying $60 for 24 or The Office does seem a bit silly when I can watch either on Hulu for free and eventually buy it on DVD for about half that price (though not in HD . . . but who are we kidding, it’s not like iTunes HD is Blu-ray HD).

Maybe this price reduction is the first step towards that, but for now I’ll just go with what Apple wrote me in its email:

“Because you’re one of our first and best customers for this season, please accept this $10.00 iTunes Store Gift Certificate.”

You hear that? I’m one of the best. The absolute best.