It has only been a year since Apple first introduced TV rentals from iTunes, but the company has already decided to kill that part of the service. The change wasn't formally announced—instead, Apple TV users began noticing that the ability to rent 99¢ TV shows was no longer available, eventually leading Apple to confirm that rentals were no longer an option.

“iTunes customers have shown they overwhelmingly prefer buying TV shows,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told All Things D. “iTunes in the Cloud lets customers download and watch their past TV purchases from their iOS devices, Apple TV, Mac or PC allowing them to enjoy their programming whenever and however they choose.”

When Apple first announced the 99¢ rentals, many TV networks held back content. Although users could rent some popular shows like Glee, the majority of iTunes' TV content remained purchase-only. As I noted in my second-generation Apple TV review (released at the same time as the rentals), this restricted users from even browsing and discovering much of the content on iTunes from their Apple TVs since the new devices only supported rentals for nearly a year—until Apple recently added the ability to stream your past iTunes purchases and even make new TV purchases again.

Now that Apple TV users have that old purchasing functionality back, Apple has apparently decided to kill the struggling rental feature. And considering that Apple is reportedly working on a possible subscription service, the company may feel that there's no point in selling what lies in between purchases and subscriptions—especially if it's not catching on with users.