Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...redirect=false

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Announced today

http://musically.com/blog/2011/07/06...-with-spotify/

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Must be busy, i cannot connect

****Edit got it now****

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

It's official

http://pressoffice.virginmedia.com/p...330&highlight=

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Press release from Virgin Media about new deal with Spotify.

http://pressoffice.virginmedia.com/p...330&highlight=

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

I wonder what will happen to VMs current inclusive with tv XL music offering ie music on demand.? Now that a subbed option is on the way.

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

No mention of how much these services will cost. Let the speculation begin .

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Why would anything happen?

Spotify is audio only, and will be audio only on TiVo

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Any guesses how much you think it will cost.

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

I'm guessing less or the same as either £4.99 or £9.99

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Ok do not know that much about spotify to be honest but if its audio only i guess music on demand will continue.:)

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Do you think it will successful Ben.

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Dunno. I think it's certainly something to add value to the services. I have Spotify myself and think it's worth the money,

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Seems a fair price, but you never know Virgin may start with deals to get people to signup to this service?

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Looking at the press release l would suspect the more services we have already got then the better the chance of a good deal here.

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Same here and i love it.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

I love Spotify and being able to use it on my TiVo will be a massive plus.

As for pricing they talk about "Exclusive offers" which to me says it will be full price. They may let you have the £4.99 subscription on your TV alone though (as in no other "devices").

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Yes lt will be very interesting to see where they price it at.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Maybe I'm thinking to much here but do you think VM timed this announcement to coincide with the launch of Sky Go.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Isn't Sky Go more of a re-branding of Sky Player than a new service?

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Maybe or perhaps your imagination is running riot again.:D:)

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Sort of an integration of sky player and sky mobile. Do you think VM customers will get preferential pricing with this spotify deal ?

---------- Post added at 12:11 ---------- Previous post was at 12:11 ----------

Probably :D

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

My guess is they will allow you to have the £4.99 (unlimited) on TiVo or Mobile and the £9.99 will be the usual "up to 5 devices" plus TiVo. Then on top of that they have talked about VM customers getting exclusive offers.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Was just reading about the deal on the Mail website. Good news. When does it start? :confused:

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

It still can't beat Zune Pass. Spotify is £1 more and doesn't offer rental downloads.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

There is no launch date at the moment but l would say 2 to 3 months.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Later in the year ;)

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Coming soon ... :D

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

It will start when it starts.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

This was off ft.com

The Spotify subscription would be offered as part of Virgin Media’s bundle of TV, broadband and phone services. The company did not specify prices but said the cost would be lower than a direct subscription with Spotify.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

l am very interested but it obviously depends on their pricing.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Found this on Engadget

"The deal will bundle Unlimited (£4.99) or Premium (£9.99) monthly Spotify tiers, at to-be-determined discounted rates"

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/06/s...-to-uk-tvs-sm/

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Yes very interesting and as a lover of music l am likely to sign up to it at the likely discounted rate.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Will be interested in the Unlimited bundle.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

I'm on Premium because it integrates with Sonos so would be interested in an easy way to migrate my existing account with Spotify to a discounted one, of the same specification or better, under my Virgin Media account. No new username please. Please build this option into any launch. Thanks. :)

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

You won't need a new account afaik.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

I take it that the probability of a VM version of Spotify Free, limitations and all, is zero.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

I think that possibility is nil.

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

I'm not really sure what to make of this deal. It's great news for current Spotify customers with TiVo but will this really appeal to the masses?

Through Virgin I've already got access to 38 radio stations, 15 dedicated music TV channels and thousands of music on demand videos. I've got thousands of legal music tracks on my PC, Xbox and ipod plus can watch thousands more music videos on Youtube via my Wii and PC. I've got all the music I need, in fact probably more music than I could possibly want and I'm a real music fan.

I'd never pay between £4.99 to £9.99 to listen to songs via my TV. Music via my TV needs to include the music video or I'm simply not interested. Sure if you subscribe to Spotify there's plenty you can do with the music via your PC too however let's not forget that not every Virgin TiVo customer has the internet.

It's great to see Virgin thinking outside the box, but for me this is a little too niche. You need to have TiVo, be a real big fan of music and be prepared to shell out an additional monthly subscription charge for this to appeal to you. I suppose once the Digital Economy Act comes into force, and Virgin start monitoring illegal downloads, this service might just become more appealing to some of our friends who choose to download their music from illegal sources. I've got a feeling Virgin are going to get very tough on peer to peer, torrent and newsgroup users real soon.

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

1) eventually everyone will have TiVo
2) We don't know the pricing yet

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Well it's either going to be a percentage discount of the existing prices Spotify charge, or it'll be the same price but somehow (if that is possible) offer more than one can get via conventional Spotify. I'm assuming the former because otherwise Spotify might annoy their existing customers who cannot get or don't want VM TiVo. Maybe it'll be a special service that only works via TiVo in which case I won't bother because integration with Sonos is my primary interest.

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Pricing and being able to convince people this is a product worth paying for is very important to this being a success.

Here's an article I read about Spotify last September, a little dated I know but a very interesting read:

http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/09/15/spotify-10-million/

And an updated article from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereport...as_it_was.html

I find it interesting that Spotify have 10 millions registered users from UK, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, France and Spain but 9.5 million listen to the service for free with only 500,000 paying for the service.

Will TiVo customers be able to access the "limited version" of Spotify free of charge?

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Haven't a clue

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

I suppose it's early days at the moment, will just need to sit tight and await further info.

Again just to reiterate, it's great to see Virgin thinking outside the box in terms of TiVo apps.

This is off topic I know but do you think there would be demand for a cooking app? So say I wanted to make an omelette or a cake, but wasn't sure how to, I could access the cooking app and it would tell me the ingredients needed, tell me the preparation and cooking methods and show me a video of the process from start to finish.

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

As you said a little dated. At last count there were one million paying subscribers.

http://www.spotify.com/uk/blog/archi...n-subscribers/

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

I wonder how many UK based subscribers they have?

I think it would be great for Virgin customers if they can access the free version of Spotify, even if it means they will only be able to listen for a maximum of 10 hours a month, and can listen to any single track no more than five times.

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Many people use you tube for free to listen to a lot of music , so the pricing of spotify on VM will be crucial to any success.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

I will have to see what the pricing is and if there are any extras. Currently I pay Napster 5 pounds per month for unlimited streaming via PC, but that includes 5 free downloads to keep (I actually use the option to pay 15 pounds every 3 months, which gives better value as you get 15 track credits and can get full albums for around 8 credits, and use the rest on single tracks)


The only advantage Spotify on Tivo will possibly have, for me, is it will eliminate the fan noise from my PCs, that does detract from feeding the music through good audio equipment.

The Spotify exclusive bit could be good and bad; we could get cheaper spotify pricing, but we may not see alternative music services such as We7, LastFm and Napster on tivo, some of which offer better or different options to Spotify in my view.

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Brilliant post , my thoughts exactly. This is superb news for existing spotify customers but how many non spotify customers will want to pay extra. Will this possibly signal the end of Music OD.

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

How many non Spotify customers will want to pay extra depends on what the VM Spotify offerings include. The Premium (which costs £10pcm) offers streaming at a higher bitrate, offline music on iPhone and integation with Sonos. Some might be prepared to pay for it because now they can get it on their VM bill at a probable discount, rather than going through Spotify directly.

I do see music subscription services working in the future, although Sky couldn't make theirs pay, because managing a music collection is time consuming and there's the potential to lose the music. All one really needs to own/have access to is their playlists and a working Internet connection. I suspect the same will apply to films in the future. The customer will never actually have a copy of the content.

Re: Virgin Media close to deal to pave way for digital music service
 

Yes I suppose your right with that , I've used a service on my connected TV called Acetrax , you can stream and watch ppv movies but you can also buy it and its stored in the cloud , you can access it on numerous devices.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Subscription levels may depend on how many people have got their tivos hooked up to stereo/AV amps and speakers. Listening to music through the average TV speaker wouldn't be worth the extra cost for me personally.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

I was thinking this earlier. It'd also be great if the music on each TiVo, streamed from Spotify, could be controlled by a web application so no requirement to even turn the television on to control the playlists. If you're familiar with Sonos, imagine a TiVo or multiple TiVo's acting in almost the same way all controlled by a web application.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09...ent_platforms/

"New sign-ups to Spotify must be Facebook members - the non-Facebook world will have to go somewhere else."

So the big question is, how does this impact on the deal between Virgin and Spotify, if at all? If someone is interested in getting Spotify via Virgin, surely they won't be forced to open a Facebook account first?

It also looks like people with a Smart TV, with access to the Facebook app will be able to access their Spotify account / tunes via the Facebook website.

It would appear selling Spotify as an app to TiVo customers is going to be more challenging than Virgin thought? Surely this move by Spotify actually devalues the deal agreed with Virgin a few months ago. Could Virgin renegade on the deal due to this move by Spotify?

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Link doesn't work.

I'd be very surprised if you had to be a f/b member to use spotify. The record companies, who really run spotify, won't want to lose out on potential customers IMHO.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Actually it's true http://www.pcworld.com/article/24064...ing_users.html

How this affects the Virgin deal I haven't a clue

In regards to record companies losing out though, there are a lot more Facebook users than there are Spotify users. As Spotify listening will now appear in the FB timeline, it's more likely increase rather than decrease usage, but by a different crowd that do at the moment

Hopefully there will be a middle ground reached

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Sorry Passingbat, not sure what's happened there. Cheers for the link Ben. Alternatively the story is covered here too:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...-the-race.html

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Thanks for the links guys.

That is a surprise, and a stupid move on Spotify's part IMHO, a view that seems to be shared with many others.

I was eagerly awaiting spotify on Tivo, but more apprehensive now. I do have a (free) spotify account, so I guess not affected ATM. And of course, tivo users may be exempt from that requirement?

I said on another thread that we7.com would have been my preference for VM to do the deal with; think that even more now.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Except they wouldn't based on We7 have just done to themselves

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Yep, just seen that following Chad's link.

Now, if Napster could just get their Automix function to be better, they could be a better option.

---------- Post added at 13:38 ---------- Previous post was at 13:28 ----------

It looks as if the changes to we7 aren't that bad?


Presumably if you pay, you get the same service as before, with no enforced facebook. And 50 on demand tracks per day sounds reasonable for the free account.

Re: Virgin Media signs a deal with Spotify
 

Just activated my 3 month we7 free trial, and it works just as it did before; I can play whole albums, playlists, or the radio mode.

So it does behave like spotify without the enforced facebook link.

One thing I've always liked on we7, is that you can play a radio station based on your whole music library, not just an artist. AFAIK, you can't do that with spotify.