Pay-per-song favored

Subscription-based online music services still face , according a new research report. Digital music services such as Napster and Rhapsody face an uphill when trying to convert music buyers to their new purchase paradigm, according to a BillboardPostPlay report. According to research by Ipsos-Insight, buyers prefer the pay-per download model made popular by Apple's iTunes. “With all of the recent media attention surrounding this rapidly changing market, these findings indicate that many downloaders still prefer a transactional payment structure over one that is subscription-based,” said Matt Kleinschmit, a Vice President with Ipsos-Insight and author of the TEMPO research.

The study found that nearly 25 percent of the surveyed 743 downloaders indicated a preference for obtaining music through a fee-based online offering. Nearly 80 percent of those individuals preferred a per-per-song model, while only 20 percent preferred a subscription model. The report concluded that "there is a potential limitation in rapidly migrating current downloaders to the new method of fee-based online music acquisition, therefore recently launched portable online subscription services may need to encourage broader adoption through ambitious pricing and promotional or incentive–based acquisition strategies."

The survey also found that illegal peer-to-peer file sharing remains an obstacle for the digital music industry. "Over three-fifths of current U.S. downloaders (62%) demonstrated a preference for peer-to-peer file-sharing when presented with a simulated market environment also containing fee-based subscription and pay-per-download channels."

by MacNN Staff