BSkyB is to close its Sky Songs music streaming service a little over a year after its launch. Existing customers, who paid £4.99 (€5.89) per month, will be able to use the service through until February. In a statement Sky said that although it believed it had created an innovative and good value digital music service, it had not been able to reach a large enough customer base for it to continue.
“We’ve taken the difficult decision to close Sky Songs. Although we are extremely proud of the service we built and the experience it offers, we just didn’t see the consumer demand we’d hoped for. As Sky Songs demonstrates, we’re a business that takes risks and innovates, but at the same time, we’re pragmatic and act decisively when a new venture isn’t working out.”
Customers will be entitled to keep any songs they have downloaded as part of their subscription or have purchased individually.
Launched in October 2009, Sky had received the backing of four major music labels, EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner, who had agreed for both their new releases and back catalogue to be featured.
Universal, which committed to the Sky service as long ago as July 2008, had also signed a similar deal with Virgin Media. However, despite music playing a significant role in the cableco’s on demand and planned TiVo proposition, the music streaming service has failed to appear.
The past 12 months have also seen the departure of the Music Choice premium audio service from the Sky platform. The two parties had been unable to reach a new commercial agreement.
