PIPER DOWN!
Currently offering subscription rates up to 50% lower than established pipers like AEI Music Network, Muzak, Play Network and Liberty Digital's DMX, MP3.com hopes to broaden the market to smaller stores that can't afford current offerings and may be playing music illegally instead. And the consequence of that scenario is something MP3.com is familiar with.
These pipers are no pikers, though. AEI projects its sales will reach $110 million this year. Muzak services about 250,000 customers in the U.S. and 15 other countries. DMX (not to be confused with the rapper of the same name) services more than 66,000 businesses and 3.4 million homes on four continents. MP3.com estimates the total annual value of the market at $500 million.
MP3.com's program would use its own library of music—470,000 songs by 74,000 artists—rather than licensing it from outside sources, which is what those other companies do.
"We think we can expand the market with our feature set," said Bob Simril, MP3.com's VP of retail music services. "I mean, where else could a store get so many Ernesto Cortazar compositions or the latest blues jams from the Jack Falk Project?"
So far, MP3.com has landed a few takers. The 109-store Rubio's Restaurant chain signed a multi-year deal and Mailboxes Etc., a 3,400-store franchise, recently participated in a four-month-long beta test of MP3.com's piping program.
"Other music services have their programmers try to get a ‘feel' of your concept and make the song selections for you," said Rubio's VP of Development Richard Rubio. "The MP3 selection process takes place over the Internet from our corporate offices. There are no CDs being sent back and forth."
Playlists can be accessed from any Web-enabled computer. Clients can make changes to the playlists every day; changes take effect the next business day.
Earlier this year, MP3.com also struck up a partnership with Fun e-Business—the parent company of Wurlitzer—to distribute digital music to commercial establishments through Web-enabled jukeboxes.
