KUALA LUMPUR:TM Net is closing down its music download service by the end of this month, according to music industry sources.
Its Bluehyppo website — where the music download service was offered — carries an announcement that the service has been suspended until further notice.
The Internet service provider, which is a subsidiary of telecommunications giant Telekom Malaysia Bhd, did not return calls for comment.
According to the music industry sources, the TM Net service is likely being terminated because it was only selling about 40 songs a month since its launch in September 2006.
In order to be successful, a music download service would need to sell at least 50,000 songs monthly, the sources said.
The music download market in this country is estimated to be worth RM144mil. Music downloads are expected to make up 20% to 25% of the revenue recorded by the local music industry this year.
TM Net’s service had offered songs by international and local artistes, priced at about RM3 each, and had about 100,000 pieces when it was launched. The start-up cost for the service would be more than RM2mil, claimed the sources.
Several music industry executives that In.Tech spoke to, said TM Net should be congratulated for trying to encourage Malaysians to download music legitimately, but it was an uphill task from the onset.
The biggest hurdle, said Sony BMG managing director Adrian Lim, was the lack of public awareness for TM Net’s service.
“After nearly two years, many music fans in the country still do not know about the service,” he said. “More is known by the public about the ISP’s streamyx service than that there was a huge repertoire of songs available for download at BlueHyppo.”
Sandy Monteiro, Recording Industry Association of Malaysia chairman, said a lot of marketing programmes need to be run to constantly promote music download services to the public.
“You have to push and keep pushing,” he said, citing rival service Guamuzik as an example of how it should be done. “Guamuzik is always creating a lot of activities to increase awareness of its service.”
According to Lim, TM Net should have taken its cue from the local cellular-service operators which are bundling music downloads with their cellphone service.
“This raises awareness for the song downloads part of the business,” he said. He believes TM Net’s download service could have been more successful if bundled with its streamyx service.
“I’d pay attention if TM Net says I can get five free song downloads a month from BlueHyppo if I signed up for a streamyx service package,” he said.
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