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Rhapsody president shaves head as service tops 1 million paid U.S. subscribers

Todd Haselton — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:15:37 +0000

Rhapsody announced on Thursday that it now has more than 1 million paying subscribers in the United States. The company claims it is now the top pay-for music streaming company in the country, although we imagine Spotify is nipping at its heals now that it has more than 2.5 million subscribers globally. In celebration of the milestone, Rhapsody president Jon Irwin shaved his head, a promise he made to the company if it ever reached million subscribers. “We’ve accomplished quite a bit over the past decade, so it’s no small statement to say that 2011 was probably our biggest year yet,” Irwin said. It is quite a big achievement; one might have assumed Rhapsody’s user base would have declined with the influx of other pay-for music services such as Spotify, Slacker, Pandora, Rdio and others. ”The next frontiers for subscription music are the living room and the car,” Irwin said. “Consumers will be able to enjoy Rhapsody from even more connected audio and video systems, as well as other platforms and distribution channels—at home, in the car and everywhere in-between, domestically and abroad.” Rhapsody’s full press release follows after the break.

Rhapsody Goes Platinum
Over One Million Paying Subscribers are Listening to Unlimited Music with the #1 Premium Music Service in the Country

SEATTLE, Dec. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Rhapsody has cemented its position as the largest premium subscription music service in the United States with the announcement today that it has surpassed the one million paying subscriber milestone. On the heels of its 10-year anniversary, Rhapsody is delivering more music—averaging more than 10 million songs a day—to more music lovers than ever before.

“We’ve accomplished quite a bit over the past decade, so it’s no small statement to say that 2011 was probably our biggest year yet,” said Jon Irwin, president, Rhapsody. “I told our team that when we topped one million paid subscribers, I’d shave my head… it was probably the best free haircut I’ve ever had.”

In addition to surpassing the one million mark, it’s been a noteworthy year for Rhapsody, which launched a new, social music experience in September, completed an acquisition of Napster November 30 and celebrated its 10^th anniversary in early December.

Rhapsody’s ongoing commitment to accessibility has also helped create separation in the space. Now available on more devices (60+) than any other subscription music service, Rhapsody has shown that access beyond the PC is a premium feature consumers are willing to pay for, as demonstrated both by subscriber growth and usage. 2011 was the first year that a majority of the playback came on a device other than a PC–40 percent of which was mobile–a trend that’s expected to continue.

Partnerships with companies such as MetroPCS, which bundles Rhapsody with its prepaid unlimited text and data plans, continue to introduce Rhapsody to new consumers who value having their music on the go.

What’s next for Rhapsody?

“The next frontiers for subscription music are the living room and the car,” said Irwin. ”Consumers will be able to enjoy Rhapsody from even more connected audio and video systems, as well as other platforms and distribution channels—at home, in the car and everywhere in-between, domestically and abroad. This has been an incredible year, marked by several notable achievements, and we’re entering 2012 with big plans to bring music to even more people, in more places.”

Spotify said to launch in U.S. next week

Zach Epstein — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:30:06 +0000

Popular European streaming music service Spotify could launch in the U.S. as soon as next week, AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka speculates. Spotify announced earlier this week that it would be taking its talents to the U.S., but it gave no indication as to how soon the launch might occur. AllThingsD says the smart money is on a launch next week, and the blog has historically been accurate with its coverage of the Stockholm-based music start-up. Kafka reaffirms that Spotify only has deals inked with three of the four major U.S. record labels, but he says a deal with Warner Music Group is close enough to being signed that it should be completed ahead of a launch next week. Like Microsoft’s Zune service or Rhapsody, Spotify allows users to stream music on demand, create playlists and more. The service uses a freemium model that permits ad-supported content to be streamed to desktop computers for free, and then offers mobile streaming, playlist sharing and sheds the ads for paid subscribers. Spotify has not yet revealed pricing for the U.S. market.

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Slacker intros ‘Slacker Premium Radio’ for $10 a month

Todd Haselton — Wed, 18 May 2011 09:59:43 +0000

On Tuesday Slacker introduced a new subscription service called “Slacker Premium Radio.” Slacker Premium allows you to search for artists and play songs, or even full albums, on demand. Similar to Rhapsody, you can also cache songs for offline playback on your phone where a 3G or Wi-Fi signal isn’t available. The streaming radio service said that it offers 6 times the amount of music that Pandora offers, although it remains unclear how its library stacks up against Rhapsody or Microsoft’s Zune service. Slacker Premium Radio is available for the web, Android, iOS, and BlackBerry now for $10 per month.

[Via Phone Scoop]

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Rhapsody app coming soon to an iPhone near you… Pending approval

Peter Martin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:05:38 +0000

Got an iPhone or an iPod touch? Got a Rhapsody ToGo subscription? Life is about to get a whole lot better for you… If Apple decides to approve Real’s new iPhone app, that is. That’s right folks, RealNetworks has submitted an app to the App Store that will allow ToGo subscribers to stream any and all music from Rhapsody’s enormous library via Wi-Fi, 3G or even EDGE. Considering the Rhapsody service is in direct competition with iTunes, logic might dictate that Apple will, umm, “pull an Apple” and find a way to reject the app. Rhapsody is doing its best to avoid rejection however, by limiting its iPhone offering to streaming only (no downloads/local storage). With about a million other music steaming apps in the App Store right now, it would be tough for Apple to warrant a rejection — especially with the FCC currently breathing down the company’s back. Hit the jump for a few more screenshots and a video of the Rhapsody app in action, and keep those fingers crossed.

[Via gdgt]

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Rhapsody launches DRM-free music store, offers 100,000 albums for free

Joshua Karp — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:38:36 +0000

Hello, Rhapsody. Real Networks’ online music store has finally launched a DRM-free download option on an apathetic unsuspecting public. Boasting a catalog of over 5 million songs, the new service allows customers to access their library for a mere $.99/song or $9.99/album. The pricing is relatively competitive, but considering how late they are to to DRM-free party, they might want to consider a fee-structure that is a bit more in line with Amazon/com’s $.89/song, $8.99 bargain basement average. Nevertheless, in an attempt to drum up excitement, Rhapsody is currently offering an entire album free of charge to the first 100,000 customers that sign up for the service. We wouldn’t recommend sticking around much after the free download hits your hard drive, but free music ain’t so bad, right? As an added incentive, the company is also making their online store available to Verizon subscribers by way of a special portal. It’s a decent solution, but we’d still wager that there are better and cheaper ways of getting music onto your handset.

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