SONY CLICKS WITH DIGITAL RADIO

ClickRadio, Inc. has secured a licensing agreement with Sony Music Entertainment and Zomba/Jive, adding these label groups to its list of digital music collaborators. In the agreements, The Sony deal gives ClickRadio access to the entire SME U.S. catalog, which includes offerings from Columbia, Epic and Sony Classical, among others, for its digital radio service.

ClickRadio also currently holds interactive catalogs of BMG Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, V2, Koch, Capricorn and others, offering an extensive list of songs on the interactive radio site, which is free, personalized and ad-supported. Its programming--created by "MusicGuides" from the radio and record worlds--is stored on users' hard drives, so it can be enjoyed whether they're connected ot the Net or not. When users are logged on, however, ClickRadio users their preferences to customize its offerings. The service was launched in December.

"Now that we have Sony and Zomba, the same issues remain for the big labels' online ventures and all these streaming services--do consumers even want them? We're growing users by 3,000-5,000 per day," ClickRadio CEO David Benjamin asserted to hitsdailydouble.com. "We have agreements with every major label group except EMI, as well as a huge number of independent labels and the major publishers. We're getting better time spent on our service than on terrestrial radio. Everything else is just noise."

"We believe that ClickRadio has created a legitimate business model to deliver near-CD quality music in secure way to the listener, ensuring that the artist, songwriters, publishers and music companies are compensated for their work," said Sony Music Entertainment VP of New Technology Jim McDermott. "Especially the music companies. Now, please excuse me while I figure out how much this deal is worth in yen."