It looks like Virgin Media may struggle to launch the unlimited MP3 downloads tier of its upcoming MusicFish service, judging by comments made by labels during a panel session at MidemNet today.
Stephan Bryan from Warner Music Group outlined his label’s objections to unlimited download services, saying they don’t “address the broad consumer base that we need to go after” and that such offers “may be appealing to voracious music consumers”, thus cannibalising sales of recorded music to the keenest music buyers.
Meanwhile, Michael Paull from Sony Music Entertainment said the industry should focus on “solving what the consumer needs, rather than come up with a model they’re not asking for”.
Even Simon Wheeler of Beggars Group – who thinks that more unlimited download offerings will launch in the future – described “a huge amount of concerns around getting to an unlimited model”, particularly for indie labels like Beggars, who rely on their keenest customers to a greater extent.
“They’re pretty turned onto technology: they are going to be some of the first ones to buy into these services,” he said. “So you take all our £500 to £1,000-a-year customers and turn them into £100-a-year customers.” Wheeler suggested that the industry needs a controlled trial of unlimited downloads to get more data on customer behaviour.
We continue our look through Music Ally’s ten year archive of digital music insights with a piece from March 2001 examining the major labels’ digital music strategies.
Sign up for a free two-week trial to Music Ally and get access to all our past reports and bulletins plus a suite of research tools including market data, a deal tracker and an analyst forecast tracker. In the most recent PDF Report you can find a rundown of 2009’s big events plus an extensive timeline detailing the key digital music happenings of the past ten years.
And continue reading after the jump to see what we thought of the majors’ digital strategies back in ‘01…
As part of Music Ally’s series looking back at a decade of digital music, we will be digging some really memorable past features out of the archives. Today we re-publish an article from our November 2000 report which examined the digital strategies of the four major labels (this was four years before Sony and BMG merged) and particularly the online music brands in which they owned equity.
Sign up for a free two-week trial to Music Ally and get access to all our past reports and bulletins plus a suite of research tools including market data, a deal tracker and an analyst forecast tracker. In the most recent PDF Report you can find a rundown of 2009’s big events plus an extensive timeline detailing the key digital music happenings of the past ten years.
And continue reading after the jump to read our 2000 report on major labels and their stakes in various digital music services…
The company running the VidZone streaming music videos service for PlayStation 3 says it’s been successful so far, punching above its weight to secure world premieres of videos ahead of MTV, MSN and Yahoo.
“Now it’s a case of labels coming back to us and saying ”okay, how can you lead the music video strategy for the new music release of our artists?,” VidZone director of marketing Louisa Jackson tells GamesIndustry.biz. VidZone now has more than 13,000 videos which have been watched more than 100 million times – and is planning to introduce commerce features and expand globally in the coming months.
“We’ll make some announcements in the near future about a number of different services and elements we’re going to be adding. Some of which revolve around more paid for items associated with music,” says director of new business development Michael Russo.
“We are exploring opportunities about interacting with other music related products around the music video. Whether they are available free or are charged is still being debated.”
Sony Music Entertainment has taken an undisclosed stake in digital distributor, and plans to integrate parts of the latter’s platform with its RED distribution subsidiary. Sony says the deal shows its commitment to expanding its services to indie labels. “Sony Music is committed to offering independent labels and distributors the most compelling package of distribution services in the industry,” says Sony’s Thomas Hesse.
Sony isn’t (yet) selling music downloads for its PlayStation 3 console, but it has just launched a streaming music videos service called VidZone.
It went live over the weekend, and promises a catalogue of thousands of videos, which can be watched individually or cued up into playlists. I’ve been having a play with the free service this morning: watch the video above to see how it all works.
Despite all the major labels signing up to DRM-free distribution on iTunes, Amazon and other stores, they still haven’t agreed deals with eMusic. That’s about to change according to the New York Times, which says Sony Music Entertainment will announce a deal with eMusic later today.
However, the article says it will only cover tracks that are more than two years old, and that eMusic will “slightly raise prices and reduce the number of downloads for some of its monthly plans” in return. eMusic boss Danny Stein says the price hike is supported by its existing indie labels. “We have been looking for a catalyzing event to do it, and we think introducing this vast, quality catalogue from Sony is that event,” he says.
Meanwhile, Sony’s digital boss Thomas Hesse has made optimistic noises about the deal. “We think the model of buying a set amount of music each month under an MP3 allowance is an attractive subscription option for consumers. We are supportive of offerings that encourage fans to dig deep into the repertoire of our artists and discover the richness of our catalog.”
As the music industry continues its inevitable trudge towards a largely DRM-free future, there’s likely to be plenty of hat-eating and humble-pie feasting from execs, blogged joyously yet scornfully by the geek press.
Latest on the rack is Sony boss Howard Stringer, who has admitted (more…)
Sony Music has revealed that it will pump up its artist websites by adding audio streaming and song lyrics to sites for acts including Britney Spears, John Legend, Kelly Clarkson and Michael Jackson. The new strategy, rolling out from early summer, is based around a “new Sony Music audio player” which allows (more…)
One artist called Atsuhiro Ito is wielding a great big glowing lightstick (an Optron, apparently) which makes screechy techno (above), while Taeji Saeai uses a lightpen and cameras, projectors and software to turn his gestures into music.
Meanwhile, Fuyuki Yamakawa plays his skull with a bone conduction mic. They haven’t made us want to buy Walkmans, but they are rather marvellous. You can watch them all below the jump.
We continue our look through Music Ally’s ten year archive of digital music insights with a piece from March 2001 examining the major labels’ digital music strategies.
