Rhapsody gets spun off, lowers monthly fee to $10

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Subscription music service Rhapsody announced today that it has officially separated from former partners RealNetworks and Viacom. To jumpstart its independence, the company has lowered its monthly price from $14.99 to $9.99, and new customers can use the service free for two weeks.

Rhapsody seems to be focusing on users of smartphones and other connected devices in hopes of beating other players to an emerging market: portable music streaming. The company has revealed plans to launch a Wi-Fi app for Android smartphones to let users take their music on the go, but there's no word on when that will be available.

Rhapsody president Jon Irwin noted that the company is mostly competing against start-ups, so it has an upper hand. It is the current market leader in music subscriptions with around 650,000, and it has partnerships with Sony, Verizon, Vizio, Sonos and other companies. Also, upon parting ways, RealNetworks gave Rhapsody $18 million, and Viacom will provide $33 million in free advertising on its properties, such as MTV and Comedy Central.

Update: The Android application is now available and you can find more information about it on Rhapsody's blog.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/38491-rhapsody-gets-spun-off-lowers-monthly-fee-to-10.html

 

[TomSEA]

I work right across the street from RealNetworks and have several friends who work there. I knew this was coming six months ago.

 

[Guest]

You might want to update the story. They just announced the release of the android app today, on the rhapsody company blog at blog.rhapsody.com. You can already find it on the Android Marketplace too.

 

[IamBD]

It seems like a good idea, but with free streaming with Pandora and some others on Android, I'm not sure how well it will work. And of course you have the Amazon store for your MP3 downloads which works well. I wish them luck.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Thanks for that, Guest. The post has been updated.

 

[oldikes]

is it possible to download music from rhapsody? so this is like paying 10 bucks a month for unlimited music?