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NBC Universal head Jeff Zucker told a hall full of future Harvard MBAs yesterday that Steve Jobs booted NBC television from the iTunes store last summer because Zucker merely asked to experiment with show pricing. In fact, Zucker went on, NBC Universal films are now a part of the iTunes movie store only because Jobs bowed to NBC's demand for variable pricing. It's a convenient narrative, but not what actually happened.

Truth is, last summer, Zucker not only asked to set pricing, he demanded that Apple share some of its hardware revenues. Jobs said no. Zucker's subsequent public statements suggest the fact that this rebuff actually surprised him. Now we know why. Yesterday, Zucker told the students at Harvard that before its dismissal, NBC shows led the iTunes video market with 35 percent share. In the metaphorical physics of most businesses, that's called leverage. In Cupertino, that's not enough to let you touch Steve's iPhone.