Today BSkyB in the UK is launching their new subscription based music model carefully named Sky Songs, but I wonder how long the idea to call it SkyTunes was banded about in the office?  The subscription model they are introducing looks quite similar to the Zune model and to Spotify on the surface and looks set to really mix things up here in the UK music market. 

Sky have huge muscles and are certainly the biggest media distribution company to enter the field so far here.  Most of the major labels and quite a few independents have signed up and I don’t doubt that this will become a big player in the music market in the UK.

But I don’t like this one little bit, and here’s why

1. The subscription model is a too complicated though for my liking, but the gist is that you pay either £6.49 and get 1 album (that costs up to £6.49) or 10 tracks to download and keep per month and unlimited free streaming or £7.99 per month for 1 album (that costs up to £7.99) or 15 tracks to download and keep per month and unlimited free streaming.  Additional tracks will cost 65p.  
2. This seems to be a “buy an album and get a month of free streaming” deal to me, I mean, that’s the offering here isn’t it?  Individual tracks from Amazon are priced about the same, so there’s no benefit there in terms of a reduced cost for downloading tracks, and I have to buy an album to get access to the unlimited subs.  I already have free, unlimited streaming from Spotify (for example), so why buy an album?
3. In terms of a subscription based model Spotify has the best offering (in the UK) at under £10 per month for unlimited music, which I can listen to offline. 

I’m sticking with what I’ve got but I wonder how many people will be drawn to Sky’s offering?  It’s free for the first month for Sky Broadband customers, so with my bargain hunting hat on, if you have Sky Broadband go get your free album.  Then go elsewhere, save more money and get a more innovative service because this doesn’t look like one.  I wish Spotify worked in Media Center.

The service is available here: http://songs.sky.com/

And the full press release is here