The Walt Disney Company, Disney-ABC Television Group and Apple announced that they are offering current and past season episodes of ABC and Disney Channel TV shows for download on Apple's iTunes Music Store, as part of the launch of iTunes 6.

The companies are launching the service with five shows including two of the most popular series on broadcast TV, Lost and Desperate Housewives, plus the potential cult favorite Night Stalker and the Disney Channel's two most popular series, That's So Raven and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.  New shows will be available the day after they are broadcast, while the entire first season of Desperate Housewives and Lost will be available for download immediately.  The price for downloading a show (available in the U.S. only at present) is $1.99 per episode.

The downloaded shows will be available for viewing on computers (either Mac or Windows machines) and easily transferable to the new iPods for viewing anywhere.  While movies, because of the length of time it might take to download them and because of the tremendous revenue they generate on DVD, might be considerably more problematic in this format (at least for the time being), anime TV series, thanks to their episodic format, would appear to be natural for this kind of online commercial activity.

It should be interesting to see how this experiment works, and its impact on DVD sales through retailers.  Certainly it has great potential, particularly if consumers will be allowed to burn the episodes on to DVDs for viewing on TV screens and in home theaters. It could have either an additive or dimunitive effect on retailer sales, depending on whether more consumers are exposed to the material for the first time or are diverted from purchasing DVDs they would otherwise have purchased.  And of course, at least for now, the DVD extras will not be available as part of the downloads.