Rich Fiscus
21 Aug 2007 15:58
Viacom and RealNetworks are hoping to take a bite out of Apple's successful iTunes service with a joint venture announced Tuesday.
MTV's Urge music service will be merged into RealNetworks' Rhapsody to form a new company called Rhapsody America. The service will be useable on computers and music players, as well as being integrated into Verizon's VCast service for mobile phones.
MTV will be marketing the service heavily beginning in September, and will also help with programming.
The companies did not say how much the new service will cost. Rhapsody currently charges subscribers $12.99 a month for unlimited listening and sells individual tracks for 99 cents, with a discount for subscribers.
The current trend in online music ventures seems to be based around entertainment company sponsorship. This may be necessary for any company that wants to take a piece of Apple's pie, but it remains to be seen what this means to consumers in the long run.
Source: Associated Press