Gwen Shlam's Blog: Sony to expand streaming service

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Sony to expand streaming service

Cloud-based Music Unlimited launches in Europe and will hit US by the end of March, competing with the likes of Spotify

Sony Music has expanded streaming service Music Unlimited to Europe and plans to launch in the US by the end of March.

The service, which launched in the UK and Ireland on 21 December, became available in France, Germany, Italy and Spain at the weekend, with a US launch planned before the end of this quarter.

Music Unlimited is powered by Qriocity ? pronounced "curiosity" ? which allows users to stream music and add it into a personal music library using a range of different gadgets including Sony's PlayStation 3, Blu-ray disc player, Bravia televisions, personal computers and smartphones.

It offers tracks from Sony ? home of artists from Bob Dylan to Beyonc� and Susan Boyle ? and fellow major music groups Universal, Warner Music and EMI.

Listeners can access music for a fee ranging from ?3.99 (�3.44) for a basic plan, which works like an ad-free radio channel, to ?9.99 (�8.62) per month for a premium service, which gives users unlimited listening and the chance to make playlists.

The ad-free service will store users' own record collections on a remote server and will give them access to millions of songs which they can access on different devices from laptops to mobile phones. It follows the lead of music streaming services such as Spotify, which offers users either a free ad-funded service or an ad-free subscription model.

Sony unveiled its plans at the Midem music industry conference in Cannes this week.

At a presentation at which Sony showed a united front with its fellow majors, Universal executive Rob Wells argued the service had "a genuine shot at success".

Sony subsidiary Gracenote is providing technology that will recommend music to users based on their tastes and listening habits.

After struggling for years to combat music piracy and falling CDs sales, the move shows the major labels attempting to cut out technology company "middlemen" by creating their own services.

But many services have already failed to make an impact, a fact acknowledged by Wells.

"We have seen a lot of these services go live over the year," he said. "I am encouraged despite having been to a number of these launches and the problems of piracy. I think what Sony has put together has a genuine shot at success on a global basis."

The Sony Music president of global digital business, US sales and corporate strategy, Thomas Hesse, said the company's global reach and wide range of devices would help make the service a success. "Sony is leapfrogging into this space [cloud-based music]. That is a very visionary and bold thing to do," he said. "Only Sony has the hundreds of millions of devices that have been connected."

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Alexandra Topping

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