MTV and Real Networks plan to announce a not-so-secret agreement to create a new "digital music initiative" at a press conference scheduled for 11 am EST on Tuesday.

The news slipped out early as the two firms apparently forgot to put journalists under non-disclosure agreements.

While we will have to wait for details to be revealed tomorrow, the announcement will mean that MTV's highly promoted URGE service that was created together with Microsoft is dead.

On the other hand, Real Network's Rhapsody, which allows consumers to listen to music for a flat fee and purchase songs for $0.89, will get more marketing horsepower through MTV.

Boooooo

Aug 21, 2007 09:14     

Now I have to find another music service, preferably one with a subscription rather than a per-song pricing scheme.
Preston report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

They HAVE a monthly subscription available, too

Aug 21, 2007 10:51     

Preston, if you spent a 20 seconds searching you'd realize they have monthly "To Go" plans as well. Wolfgang should have made it clear that they are not just per-song, but anyone remotely familiar with online music services should know that Rhapsody has been offering monthly plans for some time.
Alexvrb report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Rhapsody is great

Aug 21, 2007 11:20     

I've been a Rhapsody subscriber since its inception and love it. I've never seen the attraction to iTunes since you can't listen to an entire song, but have to buy it to hear the whole thing. I much prefer the subscription model. I'm hoping the deal with MTV will help expand the music collection on Rhapsody even more.
Ed report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

As an URGE user, I hope my transition to another se...

Aug 21, 2007 12:27     

As an URGE user, I hope my transition to another service goes smoothly. I have grown addicted to the 10 dollar per month all-you-can-listen subscription model.
IdBuyThatForADollar report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

WHY real player is broken

Aug 21, 2007 16:53     

this is a bad move real is one of the worst media players and is ladened with media tracking and "spyware" and they only use 96kb/s wma, they should have gone with music match (now yahoo media player or something like that). i used thier stuff prevista, and it was great 256kb/s mp3 files with no drm, and a good player that would rip ac2 320kb/s witch is the 2nd best next to uncompressed wav
zanzabar report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0