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By Shirley Brady
At last month's South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, HDNet chairman and CEO Mark Cuban said that music lovers should be able to download a certain number of songs a month over a broadband connection for a set fee. "Ninety percent of music is purchased by 15% of the population," Cuban observed on a panel. "There's got to be a way to tap into everyone else."
Music Choice aims to do just that for cable modem customers, but with no monthly charge. There also would be no charge to cable operators, outside of the hardware and software costs needed for deployment.
Launching to cable operators early this month, Music Choice Broadband-a broadband service for operators' high-speed Internet portals-offers subscribers 52 channels of streamed music, exclusive video and audio artist interviews at no additional charge. It also gives users unlimited listening to songs aggregated by Napster, its content partner for the initiative.
Users can click on a "download now" button displayed on the Music Choice streaming music player to buy the track or the album on which it appears. Music Choice Broadband users can access Napster's library of more than 500,000 tunes, watch music videos, access Billboard rankings or send tunes to friends at no charge.
Partnering with the formerly rebellious Napster isn't as outrageous as it might sound. Napster is now owned by Roxio and has gone legit, boasting a large catalog of online music through deals with the five major labels and hundreds of independents.
Users can bookmark ten favorite channels under "My Channels," or check out "Music Choice Charts" to find out the top 10 played songs at any time. "Music Choice Today" offers exclusive concerts, studio performances and video interviews taped on location or at the Music Choice studio.
The new service expands the reach of Music Choice beyond its existing base of 34 million TV homes. In addition to being accessible to high-speed subscribers, it also will attract a young audience and help cable affiliates drive HSD subscriptions, says Music Choice president and CEO David Del Beccaro. "This takes us out of the living room," he says, "and into kids' bedrooms and beyond."
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