Google Shies Away from Digital Music Sales

mytrip writes to tell us that Google has announced that they will not be getting in on the digital music sales market anytime soon. Analysts have been predicting the response of a "GTunes" service for months but Chris Sacca, head of business development at Google, dispelled those rumors in a recent address at the annual National Association of Recording Merchandisers conference in Florida. Sacca emphasized the need for "ecosystem development" and partnerships within the industry stating that they were the "big opportunity" in the digital music business.

Comments

Re:I know why google doesn't want in!

[ronkronk]

Stop wasting time!
ext:mp3

Re:No wonder Google doesn't want in.

[Reaperducer]

You are confusing two separate issues.

The fact remains (and this is something that many internet bitcasters can't wrap their brains around) that the average radio station pays millions of dollars each year to play music. Even if you're a crappy three kilowatt FM in some medium market, your licensing fee is going to run about a million dollars a year (Could have changed, it's been a few years since I was involved in this).

People on the internet like to pretend that radio stations get their music for free. Yes, the record companies send them free CDs, but the radio stations still have to pay for playing them on the air. And in many cases, even small stations don't rely on free CDs from the record companies any more. They subscribe to libraries of what are essentially mix CDs full of music tailored to their audience. That's another service they pay for.

I got out of radio several years ago, so I can only imagine what internet delivery of playlists has done to all of this. But one thing I'm sure of -- radio stations aren't playing music for free.