Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), serious about this thing called digital media, has added TV shows to its Zune marketplace. It will offer about 800 TV shows, each for $1.99, for download from companies such as Comedy Central, MTV and NBCU. The number is very small, compared with thousands of episodes from 600 different shows on Apple’s (NSDQ: AAPL) iTunes store. According to NPD, Apple had 71 percent share of portable media players, while Zune has 4 percent. Microsoft started video downloads for Zune in October last year, as it launched a 2.0 version of the portable player, but was only limited to music videos then.

Some other updates on wireless syncing are being added to Zune this week (details here), though such social tools are moot without any kind of scale. Small victory on NBCU: the media company pulled its shows from iTunes last year following pricing dispute, but are being offered through Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) Unbox and now Zune Marketplace.