BEST BUY WANTS SUBSCRIBERS

Hot on the heels of news that the company was acquiring Musicland, Best Buy today announced it wants to partner with the major label groups to sell subscription-billed digital music services. What, you thought they wanted to sell you a microwave oven?

Best Buy Chairman/CEO Richard Schulze said the company wants to sell subscription-based music and work more closely to "break new artists," reports Webnoize. The subscription concept is part of Best Buy's digital world domination plan to nearly triple its music sales market share to more than 30%—with planned expansion of Musicland's On Cue and Magnolia stores as well as more Best Buy stores—and therefore influence how the digital music marketplace develops.

Here's a breakdown of the subscription plan: Best Buy plans to sell 1.7 million subscriptions this fiscal year through a partnership with Microsoft. Best Buy customers get a $400 bribe, unh, we mean rebate, in return for agreeing to pay $21.95 a month for three years (that's $264 a year or $792). The company would receive recurring revenue from the deal.

The bump in the road, however, is that Best Buy cannot put the plan into full effect until the music companies decide how they want to deploy their own subscription models. And we've all seen how deftly the labels have been moving in that direction.

Although Schulze predicted the company's expansion plans would add $10 billion in annual sales within a decade, investors were still skeptical of the prospects for the overall Best Buy-Musicland deal.

In its earnings report, Best Buy said Q3 earnings fell 27% to $57.3 million (or 27 cents a share), compared to the same period last year. Best Buy blamed the drop on slow consumer demand, sunspots and a lack of spiritual leadership as we move into the new millennium.

Revenues increased 20% to $3.7 billion. That's a helluva lot of refrigerators, boss.