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Business News Digital
Last.fm delay radio subscriptions
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 31 March 2009
last.fm are postponing the introduction of a three euro monthly subscription fee on its streaming radio services which, as previously reported, will come into effect outside of the UK, Germany and the US, because outside those territories the music recommendation outfit doesn’t have the resource to sell advertising to keep the service free.
The announcement of the let’s face it nominal subscription fee was met with much anger by some last.fm users in effected territories who, of course, increasingly expect everything for free. The postponement doesn’t mean the subscription charges won’t come into effect in due course, they will, but the online music service says it hopes to “squeeze in some additional improvements based on user requests” before making the charges, and also to look at alternative ways to allow users to pay other than with a credit card, probably by SMS.
Responding to the criticism that surrounded last week’s announcement of compulsory subscriptions, last.fm founder Richard Jones wrote on the company’s blog: “We simply can’t be in every country where our radio service is available selling the ads we need to support the service. The internet is global, and geographic restrictions seem unfair, but it’s a reality we are faced with every day when managing our music licensing partnerships”.
