News

Spotify to take over TV?

• 10th Jun 2010

It's official, Spotify is now available to digital TV users in Norway & Sweden, so when's the rest of Europe getting a piece of the pie?

Premium subscribers in Norway & Sweden who use the TeliaSonera service are going to be dancing round their living rooms 'til there's no tomorrow thanks to this new spotify partnership… so surely the rest of Europe (especially England) should be next?

There's no word from the Swedish company as yet as to when (and if) the service is to be rolled out here, but there are certainly a few things that could put a spoiler on this for us brits…

Universal and Virgin Media have long been embroiled in negotiation to begin an exclusive subscription based music streaming service to UK Digital television users (which of course would be fantastic in theory) except there's a major flaw… Universal were the ONLY one of the big four record labels to sign up, as such, negotiations have now been going on (without notable progress) for 2 years!

This affects Spotify because (as you may know) they rely on the repertoire of the 4 major labels (and of course the independants) for their streaming content, and if they try and step on Universal's toes (Universal being the BIGGEST of the big 4) they could face losing a large proportion of their content… in turn, losing their subscribers!

This affects us (the brits) because if Universal block their advances, or Spotify go over their heads and try and get in with Virgin… who knows, Universal could well throw their teddies out the pram and all us spotify premium users can wave bye bye to the majority of the music we listen to when using the service… (that's right pop heads, no more Lady GaGa!)

Of course, this is all theory… but what I’d like to think is that Universal and Virgin would give up and make room for the jolly green giant… Spotify is proving to be a force to be reckoned with, making space for new services and embracing new ideas is how Britain remains at the forefront of the digital music industry in Europe… and you know what they say, if you can't beat 'em join 'em!

… well, at least until Apple launch their new cloud streaming service…. check out the blog here: link