As technology shifts and music labels look for sustainable business models, broadband may make a difference. It takes four to five minutes to download a three-minute single. How may consumers want to tie up their PC for three to four hours. Broadband allows consumers to download singles in seconds and entire CD in minutes. Viewing Lounge, the most popular according to a UMG spokesman, provides custom blocks of music videos.
Consumers rate the videos, with the most popular videos earmarked for the heaviest rotation.
The program contains 100 videos and 10 hours of programming, UMG said. The content is designed to entertain, expose music to more consumers and sell CDs. Universal's confined its downloading tests to the narrowband world. Consumers pay no fees in the technology test to access 20,000 songs from Universal's library. That streaming test provides copy protection.