Mobile Music - Part 3 - Full Track Downloads

To follow along the theme of Music related blog pieces, I wanted to look at why full track downloads on your phone haven’t really taken off yet. Having worked in the industry, I know there are a number of quite substantial hurdles you need to get over before you can get a mobile full track download service up and running.

Commercial

From a commercial point of view, launching a music service is quite a challenge. You need to put a Digital Rights Management system in place, as well as negotiate with a large number of record companies. Getting good deals with enough music owners is the only way to achieve a cost effective service that offers a decent catalogue of tracks. This takes time and effort.

Consumer attitude

The other major barrier is consumer usage patterns. A lot of research has indicated that consumers are not willing to buy music via their mobile phone. What they are very happy to do is play music on it - having side loaded content from their PC, or swapped tracks using Bluetooth. Unsurprisingly, both these methods are free.

Music quality

For the music purists, the quality on mobile is poorer than other formats. This is due to the codec and bit rate used. The aim being to ensure the file size is small enough to be downloaded as quickly and cheaply as possible over-the-air.

Network speeds

Not that long ago, 2.5G and EDGE were the only network speeds on offer. It’s fair to say this didn’t help take off and usage. 3G and more importantly HSDPA have changed the landscape for mobile music downloads. It is now possible to preview a track in 5 seconds and have downloaded it within 25 seconds. This speed change linked with zero rating of data should help stimulate the market.

Cost

Being frank, the price of a full tracks has been too high. Bundled offerings have stimulated demand (e.g. 10 tracks for £7) but once the bundle finishes, results show consumers stop downloading.

The future

Trials for service such as ‘all you can eat’ subscription services - where in essence you rent music in return for a monthly fee, haven’t really flown. Today we see ‘all you can eat unlimited’ where you own the content for ever. It is still early days as to the uptake numbers.Trials for ad funded services for music are also taking place. I hear results are promising. We wait for these to be published, but there is good potential for these kind of models to help stimulate the service uptake.

Also posted on www.welovemobile.co.uk