Tata Teleservices to launch Music Xpress

MUMBAI: As consumers demand more out of their mobile, service operators are going that extra mile to fulfill those demands and at the same time also looking at tapping additional revenue opportunities.

Bollywood content like ringtones, music, wallpapers and games rules the roost on mobile Value Added Services (VAS) and in order to cash in on this phenomenon, Tata Teleservices Ltd will be introducing a new service called – Music Xpress.

Music Xpress will be launched in a fortnight and will be a full song download service, wherein subscribers can browse through hundreds of songs. Tata Teleservices Ltd president (VAS) Pankaj Sethi says, “The model that we are going to follow with this service is ‘eat as much as you get.’ The service will be available at a subscription fee of Rs 50 per month and users will have the option of downloading unlimited songs.”

Due to the storage space constraint on mobile devices, only 10 – 20 songs can be available at a time in the play list. However, this play list can be changed as and when the consumer wants.

Tata Teleservices has signed up with almost all music companies for their catalog, which will be made available on Music Xpress.

What’s more, apart from the monthly subscription fee, Tata Teleservices has also explored the option of advertisements on this service. On the top panel of the mobile application, space will be given to advertisers, which will be interactive in nature. “The ads will be static .GIF files and the consumers can click on it and opt for the service,” says Sethi.

The interactivity option can be either an SMS based contest for the advertiser or can direct the consumer to call center / toll free number of the advertiser for any queries. Apart from this, advertisers will also have the option of providing their brands’ wallpapers and ringtones via the ad. Interactive online polls will also be made available, the results of which will be visible immediately on the consumer’s mobile screen.

However, once the consumer is done with exploring these ads, he can always go back to the Music Xpress application, which doesn’t shut down when consumers opt to explore the ads.

So what happens when the consumer doesn’t renew his monthly subscription, are the downloaded songs still available to him? “No, when a consumer doesn’t renew his subscription, he won’t be able to access the song list as it is controlled by the application,” says Sethi.