Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 11, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Successful rapper and producer Timbaland will distribute his next music album exclusively through US mobile group Verizon Wireless http://www.verizon.com. As part of a contract concluded with the service provider, the artist will release one new song per month through the mobile network. The titles appearing in this way will be available exclusively to subscribers to V Cast, Verizon’s mobile entertainment service. In addition, the group’s customers will have the opportunity in a dedicated mobile channel to access image and video material showing Timbaland recording the songs. The background to the novel distribution model is the music industry’s search for new business channels. Having thus far failed to offset the emerging loss of income from CD sales and legal downloads, the industry is now placing its hopes in the mobile-communications market.
‘Although the mobile-communications market is currently declining in general, downloading music directly to a mobile phone has enormous potential for the music industry,’ explains Daniel Knöll, spokesman for the Bundesverband der Musikindustrie in Germany http://www.musikindustrie.de, in response to an enquiry from the Naxhrichten service pressetext.de. At present, high prices in particular are responsible for this potential not yet being able to come fully into effect. ‘Most users still find the current offerings on the mobile music market too expensive,’ Knöll believes. Only when the costs of such services fall will this area of the market continue to grow. ‘Mobile music downloads are, however, in any event an interesting future market that is developing disproportionately well compared with other areas,’ Knöll states.
Last year, sales revenue generated by mobile full-track downloads almost doubled. This area grew particularly strongly in the Japanese market: sales of mobile downloads there increased by 32 percent compared with the previous year. ‘Through mobile music downloads, the industry in Germany was able to generate 17.2 percent of the revenue achieved in the digital market last year,’ Knöll explains. Corresponding figures were collected for the first time last year.
As part of a tour, Timbaland will work with different artists each month and produce new songs. Verizon subscribers can purchase these through the company’s mobile service at a price of 1.99 dollars per title. It is also intended to be possible to transfer music tracks acquired in this way to a computer.
