ABC Follows NBC’s Lead And Will Also Sell Archive News Clips In The iTunes Store

Monkey see. Monkey do. After NBC News posted a collection of archive news clips in the iTunes Store, ABC News made a mad rush to the party.

Starting this month, ABC has begun selling archived news clips on Apple‘s iTunes Store. ABC is betting that users will pay $1.99 to watch the network’s coverage of such news events as the O.J. Simpson car chase and President Nixon‘s resignation.

The move expands ABC’s video offerings on iTunes beyond entertainment programming such as “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost,” which it began selling last October. The move also puts the network into competition with General Electric‘s NBC News, which began selling some archived news content on iTunes in May 2006.

Just like NBC, Walt Disney‘s ABC is offering footage of historic events, including the Challenger space-shuttle disaster, as well as celebrity interviews. Clips range from about 18 minutes to 40 minutes, and, like other iTunes downloads, can be viewed on a computer or an iPod.