Daily Show subscriptions available through iTunes
(Via Lost Remote)
Okay, so some marketing genius decided to call it a "multi-pass", but you can now buy the next 16 episodes of the Daily Show on iTunes for $9.99, and new episodes (not including re-runs) will automatically be downloaded as they become available. Once again, MTV Networks and their subsidiaries are further ahead on the development curve than their competitors.
Update: My colleague Ivan Askwith makes some very cogent points about this decision in comments. Check them out.
While I'm not entirely clear on the particular logic of sixteen episodes -- not fifteen? not seventeen? -- I think this is actually a huge development, for two reasons.
1) It's the first step away from Apple's "one price suits all" model for video content distribution, and
2) it will test the water for the viability of fan-subsidized television production.
On top of which, The Daily Show might be the killer vodcast -- short enough to watch on your way to work, with a new episode almost every day. This one took too long coming.