Virgin Media Close to Deal for Digital Music Service A trial could launch as early as this summer

By Emma Bazilian

In early 2009, Virgin Media announced that it was planning an unlimited music download subscription service in partnership with Universal Music, but none of the other major labels signed on. Yet according to the Guardian, Virgin Media is now close to signing a new deal with Spotify, and four record companies — which means that the digital music service might finally come to fruition.


The negotiations have taken so long to complete because Virgin Media also had to separately agree to terms with Sony Music, Universal Music, EMI, and Warner Music as they have the power to veto any deal Spotify does. But sources are now saying that a deal has been agreed to in principle and is “all but signed.”

If the deal goes through, Virgin Media plans to launch a limited trial of the service over the summer with full consumer availability coming this winter. Sources say that Virgin Media may offer the new music service as a “bundle” with other Virgin products like TV, broadband, and telephone.

Assuming that no one beats it to the punch, Virgin Media will be the first of the “big five” Internet service providers to launch a digital music service, says the Guardian.

Vevo Climbs Web Video Charts

The newcomer is now the No. 3 video venue on the Web...

The red-hot music site, a joint venture between Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group -- with investment from Abu Dhabi Media and backing from Google's YouTube -- reached 48 million unique users in June, per comScore. That makes it the third-largest video site on the Web, trailing YouTube and Yahoo.

The venue -- which went live eight months ago -- has seen its user base grow steadily. According to company officials, Vevo now delivers 1 billion views globally every month.

In the U.S., the site appears to be reaching a broad cross section of viewers, as an impressive one in four Web users has logged on to the site, per figures compiled from comScore and YouTube Content Manager.

The site has also quickly penetrated the Hispanic and younger Web demographics. Vevo executives claim that the venue now reaches 27 percent of the U.S. Hispanic audience, or 7.4 million Hispanic users, and one in three U.S. video viewers age 18-34.

That growth positions Vevo especially well in the exploding online video market. This year, two-thirds of U.S. Internet users, or 147.5 million people, will watch some form of online video content at least once per month, according to eMarketer. By 2014, the number of U.S. online video viewers will represent 77 percent of Internet users, or 193.1 million people, according to eMarketer's forecasts.