The recent announcement that Sky and Universal Music Group have signed a deal to work on a ground breaking subscription and music download service has opened up a whole new market for the music industry. Universal vice president of digital Rob Wells believes that the future for music will be best served as part of a bundled package with broadband the more favoured of the options on the market.
It may have taken time to bring it together but the broadband and media companies are now looking to work more closely at new delivery routes and payment systems which will expand the current markets. As broadband is expected to become a major element of each and every household in the UK, and speeds are expected to mushroom over the next decade it seems inevitable that broadband will become the delivery system of choice.
This forecast move puts Sky in a very strong position because they have experience in starting up and administering subscription based services and they also have a cutting edge broadband service with plans to introduce a 50MB offering in the short term. Competition will be tough and the move will not happen over night but if Rob Wells is correct then there will be some ground breaking changes in the music industry over the next few years.