This really isn't like subscription based ones because if you stop paying, does Apple render your downloads unuseable?

The Daily Show (and to a much lesser extent, The Colbert Report) are the biggest reasons I'm still keeping my Comcast cable service. If this report is true, Comcast just might be losing out.

I misread — I didn't realize this was already available. Comcast, you should definitely be worried.

Its just a "buy in bulk" thing, like buying an album vs. indivdiual songs. It "might" be worth it if (a) you could download any shows, not just a block of one type, and (b) if it weren't the fact that these shows usually go on vacation one week a month, meaning 4 of the shows will tend to be reruns, and, thus, not getting much of an extra deal.

Testudo, your (b) point doesn't wash. You're right, these shows go on week-long vacations fairly often. (I'm not sure if it's one out of every four weeks, but let's assume that for argument's sake.)

-4 episodes of The Daily Show x $1.99 ea. = $7.96/week -$7.96/week x 3 weeks = $23.88/"month"

That's still almost two and a half times as expensive as the $9.99/month multi-pass for the show. In fact, they only need to broadcast more than five shows in a given month to make the multi-pass cheaper than buying a la carte. That sounds like a pretty decent discount ("extra deal") to me.

Read it again. It says 16 NEW shows. That should mean no reruns. I'll subscribe once and see. If I get reruns, I won't re-subscribe. But are there commercials? I hope not.

So I clicked "subscribe" for 16 episodes of the Daily Show, got my receipt and a message -- oh, by the way we didn't really download it - try again some other time.

So, you're paying for the next 16 NEW episodes, regardless of when they air. Even better. I wonder if the multi-pass can auto-renew after that. Surely Apple would at least send you an e-mail, say at show 15. "Want to renew your Daily Show multi-pass? Click here."

Also, since the runtime for the first episode is 21:57, I'd say no commercials.

A little more than 60¢/show, commercial free? I dunno, sounds like a pretty decent deal to me.

Apple extends this to other TV shows in the lineup. They can vary the number of shows per "set" and the price to account for show length and frequency. Apple should add an auto-renew option.

If you think about it, this method is actually more like a REAL subscription, like for a magazine. You get the next one when it is ready. If you stop paying, you stop receiving, but can keep all the ones you already paid for. That's more like a "subscription" than the "pay monthly /download all you want / lose it all if you stop paying" schemes from Napster and others.