Fifteen months after it first announced it, BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) is finally launching its own digital music service, Sky Songs, on October 19.
Though Sky only had Universal on board for last year’s announcement, it’s now hooked all the majors and a range of indies. But the catalogue, at four million, is small compared with services like 7digital, which has nearly eight million. As planned, MusicStation maker Omnifone is powering the web-based service.
Though there will be obvious opportunities for Sky to cross-sell the offering to its TV, broadband and phone customers, who will get a free album for trial, it’s actually offering it to all comers. Is that a smart move, or is it a missed opportunity to drive up broadband subs?
Pricing is very competitive…
— £6.49 a month for 10 MP3 downloads (or an album priced at £6.49) (plus unlimited web streaming)
— £7.99 a month for 15 MP3 downloads (or an album priced at£7.99) (plus unlimited web streaming)
— Extra individual tracks from £0.65 each – cheaper than iTunes and several other services.