Apple launches 'season pass' option for TV shows

iTunes is perhaps the best friend of countless music fans. It's easy to forget about the days in which you had to purchase an entire CD just to get one song, now thanks to Apple's service, millions of consumers today buy their music à la carte.

That's not to say that Apple and its record label partners don't want consumers to purchase albums.

To that end, Apple has for some time offered a 'Complete My Album' option that allows iTunes users that have purchased an individual track from an album to purchase the entirealbum at a discounted price.

Unfortunately, such an option has been unavailable for TV shows, up untill now.

As reported by MacRumors, Apple has rolled out a 'Buy Season Pass' option for television shows:

When logged in and viewing an iTunes Store page listing for a single season of a TV show, the Season Pass purchase price will be reduced by the amount of previous single-episode purchases, allowing users to upgrade to the full season without having to essentially repurchase the episodes they had previously acquired individually.

Needless to say, this feature will no doubt be welcomed by iTunes users. But as simple as this feature is, it's also an important one.

iTunes is an increasingly important distribution hub for Hollywood, and as The Verge's Joseph Parish notes, it allows users to "more affordably try out a new show before committing to the entire season."

When it comes to music, the albums that rack up the most sales are generally going to be the ones that are packed full of quality songs - rather than one-hit wonders.

As computer monitors and tablets become the 'small screen' for more and more consumers, the creators of TV shows may find that 'selling a season' to digital consumers raises the bar for each episode.