Major League Baseball (MLB) has pulled its audio podcasts from Apple's iTunes Store, a decision that came out of a desire "to exercise greater control over how its games are presented online," according to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). The podcasts were free, however, so the move won't hurt Apple's revenue.

Bob Bowman, who runs MLB Advance Media, told the newspaper that Apple wouldn't give the podcasts better visibility than those created by fans. "That may sound immaterial, but again the brand is very important to us," he said. The change now means that fans can only get the podcasts through MLB.com, which was previously delivering roughly three-fourths of them each day.

"We respect Apple and iTunes -- we all carry iPods ourselves -- but we think, in the long run, our fans will be better served on MLB.com," Mr. Bowman said.

Writing about the decision for MarketWatch, Frank Barnako remarked: "It's really amazing this objection hasn't been heard before. Since iTunes debuted its podcast directory more than a year ago, the company has offered no information about the popularity of podcasts other than it's odd ranking charts based on subscriptions over the past 24 hours.

"Apple gives podcasters no idea how popular their shows are. And podcasters looking for visibility in the directory, like MLB, have little idea how to influence display."

He added: "While dozens of cable channels and the major TV networks are posting material on iTunes, too, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact many of them are investing heavily in their own audio and video download delivery services, where they don't have to share revenue."