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MTV Bails on Microsoft's URGE Store

Posted by Zonk on Tue Aug 21, 2007 02:12 PM
from the pull-the-ripcord dept.
Media Music Businesses The Internet
Marlowe writes "MTV's once-ballyhooed partnership with Microsoft appears to be all but dead. MTV is teaming up with RealNetworks to form Rhapsody America, with Verizon handling wireless distribution. It's a big blow to Microsoft, too. 'With the creation of Rhapsody America, the writing is on the wall for MTV and Microsoft's Urge music store partnership. Although the Microsoft-MTV marriage was announced with great fanfare, it was likely headed for divorce court right from the start due to Microsoft's plans to turn PlaysForSure into a second-class citizen with the launch of the Zune — and its self-contained music ecosystem.' When asked about the future of Urge, MTV Music Group President Toffler was terse. 'We are in discussions with Microsoft now and will be on Windows Media Player 11 until further notice,' he said. While the Urge brand will ultimately disappear, Toffler said that 'a lot' of Urge's elements will live on in Rhapsody America."
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  • gg no re (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:16PM (#20308915)
    Apple already won this game.

  • Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:17PM (#20308923)
    Why would any company want to partner with Microsoft? They seem to drop commitments at a whim (PlaysForSure) and do not seem to ever has their partners interest anywhere in their list of priorities.

    Are there any examples of Microsoft ever participating in a mutually beneficial relationship with another company?

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)

      by MightyMartian (840721) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:30PM (#20309137) Journal

      Are there any examples of Microsoft ever participating in a mutually beneficial relationship with another company?
      That's like asking if anyone has ever entered a mutually beneficial relationship with Count Dracula.

      • Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)

        by pandrijeczko (588093) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:33PM (#20309195)
        That's like asking if anyone has ever entered a mutually beneficial relationship with Count Dracula.

        I resent that comparison!

        Count Dracula *STOPS* sucking blood when he has had his fill!

      • Its odd how business keep partnering with MS only to get screwed down the road later. They never learn.
        • My relationship with him's been fine. Except he keeps trying to eat my cereal...

          That's Count Chocula, silly.

    • Because they are businessmen (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WindBourne (631190) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:50PM (#20309455) Journal
      Everybody thinks that they will come out ahead by dealing with MS. But MS's game is NOT tech, but marketing and legalize. The absolute best that you can expect is to come out even. Until business ppl realize that you will be screwed by dealing with them, they will continue to take this path. The interesting point on all this, is that if you pay attention, you will find that only a few ex-MS execs. will deal with MS until they are monster size themselves. While they are little or medium size, they avoid contact with MS. Shows that some of the MS execs are not idtios.

    • They seem to drop commitments at a whim (PlaysForSure)
      While I agree with you in principle, to be fair, Microsoft dropped "PlaysForSure" after the deal with MTV to create URGE had already happened. There are probably earlier examples of Microsoft stabbing their partners in the back, which could have served as warning signs to MTV ahead of time, but this is not one of them. It can only serve to inform future would-be dealings with Microsoft.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ed Avis (5917)

        While I agree with you in principle, to be fair, Microsoft dropped "PlaysForSure" after the deal with MTV to create URGE had already happened.

        Isn't that the point? They made a partnership and persuaded MTV to use PlaysForSure, then after making the deal, they decided to effectively sideline PlaysForSure and switch to the Zune instead.

        BTW,

        "Our music brands, MTV, CMT, and VH1 can now be found on multiple screens as our audience has made it crystal clear that they really want their music accessible wherever t

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by admactanium (670209)

        MS's $500 million investment probably saved the company from bankruptcy. This was at the low point of Apple's market share, reputation and stock price. MS propped them up because they knew Apple customers were potential MS customers too, even if they didn't use their OS.

        it was $100M. apple was far far away from bankruptcy at the time. however, apple did need to sure a version of office of mac for their future viability. ms likely propped them up because they heard the DOJ breathing down their neck.

        That dea

      • Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by mcmaddog (732436) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @03:33PM (#20310163)

        Ironically enough, the one instance I can think of is Apple.

        MS's $500 million investment probably saved the company from bankruptcy. This was at the low point of Apple's market share, reputation and stock price. MS propped them up because they knew Apple customers were potential MS customers too, even if they didn't use their OS.


        $500 million? Saved Apple from bankruptcy? Microsoft invested $150 million in non voting shares and Apple had over $6 billion in cash in the bank at the time. They were nowhere near going bankrupt. Also Apple customers aren't "potential" MS customers, MS is the largest supplier of Mac software after Apple. What saved Apple was the return of Steve Jobs and his focusing the company on profitable products like the rollout of the iMac.

        Also, except for Office 6 when MS tried to use the same code base for Mac and Windows versions, the Mac version, starting with it's debut for Mac before any PC version existed, has often been thought of as better. Partly due to MS' use of the smaller Mac market to test new features that if well received become part of the Windows version, but also due greatly to the developers in the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft which are true Mac users.

  • What makes MTV think.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 8127972 (73495) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:19PM (#20308939)
    ....That it can seriously compete with the Apple iTunes store regardless of who they are partnered with? The iTunes ecosystem has too much of a head start to be caught in the short term IMHO.
    • Because MTV (and the Music Labels) view Apple as the upstart n00b.

      "Who do they think they are, we're M-Fucking-T-V! We'll bury them with this new system!"

      Everyone thinks their team can win, whatever the odds...
    • I'll tell you why; Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

      Who better to partner with? What other software colossus has such a large captive audience?
    • Apparently MTV still has some influence among the 12-18 set, so I would imagine they can get some traction with that demographic. Apple's demo does intersect that, but there is opportunity on the lower end if they can tie it to a cheaper music player that's more accessible to the tween/early teen set.

      • That is an interesting point, and I don't doubt that you are right, the question that I have is this. Of those 12-18 year olds, how many of that actually see MTV as Music Television anymore? There was a time, not that terribly long ago, where they actually spent a considerably portion of the day playing music and were influential in the early careers of many musicians. How true is that anymore? How much M is left in MTV?

        As an aside, when I first heard MTV was partnering with MS, I thought, with MTV's hel

    • There are and will be competitors in the marketplace that will effectively compete with iTunes.

      I have an iPod and a Creative Zen. Guess which one I use more? (hint: it's NOT the iPod)

      What I don't get is why Microsoft shot their own "PlaysForSure" into "PlaysForMaybe" with their Zune. That strikes me as the most fundamentally stupid thing they could have possibly done, pretty much torpedoing both projects in one fell swoop.

      It's a dog food thing - Microsoft wants other companies to buy into PlaysForSure but

  • No tears shed here (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Arathon (1002016) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .yentluagretep.> on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:19PM (#20308945) Journal
    This may be somewhat off-topic, but I can't mourn this passing. "URGE" always seemed to me to be one of the ugliest, dumbest-sounding names of all the music download services available. And its front-row presence in WMP11 has always annoyed me to no end.

    Plus, who really cares about these services anymore, now that WalMart is offering EMI and Universal MP3s without DRM for cheaper than iTunes, at 256 kbps....

    • This may be somewhat off-topic, but I can't mourn this passing. "URGE" always seemed to me to be one of the ugliest, dumbest-sounding names of all the music download services available.
      I dunno. It's kinda catchy. "I've got an URGE for Britney Spears" just sort of rolls off the tongue.
        • That's not the kind of URGE that a music store can help you with.

          Yeah, a psychiatrist would probably be a better option.

    • "URGE" always seemed to me to be one of the ugliest, dumbest-sounding names of all the music download services

      I agree. I sometimes wonder whether Microsoft's Marketingdroids run on Win ME. By word association, "urge" connects in my head to "bowel movement". Brown Zunes don't help this. Nor, for that matter, does the use of the word "squirt".

      My tip for MS though is that it's time to call it quits. When you are losing contracts to a company whose media player is so universally reviled that even die hard

    • Re:No tears shed here (Score:4, Funny)

      by niceone (992278) * on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:42PM (#20309347) Journal
      "URGE" always seemed to me to be one of the ugliest, dumbest-sounding names

      Look on the bright side, they could have called it "Surge", think what a PR disaster that would have been.

    • "URGE" always seemed to me to be one of the ugliest, dumbest-sounding names of all the music download services available.
      They wanted "SQUIRT" but Ballmer already called dibs on that one.

  • MTV...Music.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jellomizer (103300) * on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:19PM (#20308955)
    What does MTV have to Do with Music.... Back in the 80s it had a bunch of music videos but now it more kinda of a TV Teen magazine, that sometimes shows a music video. As for a huge loss for Microsoft probably not it might be a minor one. But I think this is the lease of Microsoft Worries. Like those billions of dollars they accidentally paid for to help support Linux.
    • Agreed. Its interesting that MTV has to have a Music Subdivision, isn't it? Anyways, I am hopeful. I have used iTunes the whole time, but I would think about LOOKING at other services if they provide DRM free content. Nowadays, this is slightly more likely, though I think I would settle for iTunes compatible DRM. I wonder what this thing will look like.

    • What does MTV have to Do with Music.... Back in the 80s it had a bunch of music videos but now it more kinda of a TV Teen magazine, that sometimes shows a music video. As for a huge loss for Microsoft probably not it might be a minor one. But I think this is the lease of Microsoft Worries. Like those billions of dollars they accidentally paid for to help support Linux.

      Laguna Beach killed the video star
      Laguna Beach killed the video star
      In my pants or in my car,
      We can't go back, we've gone too far.
      Laguna Beac

    • And even when they played music videos they didn't own them. They own shows like Real Life and such. So it begs the question - what would they offer anyway? They aren't content producers so much as distributors of other's content. It hardly makes them a "Goliath" in the music industry.

      That being said, content creators and publishers will look to MT V to drive them to their own distro sites, like Itunes and gbox.

  • Because someone will ask.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by BlackCobra43 (596714) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:22PM (#20308989)
    ballyhoo (bl'-h')

    n., pl. -hoos.
    Sensational or clamorous advertising or publicity.
    Noisy shouting or uproar.
    tr.v., -hooed, -hooing, -hoos.
    To advertise or publicize by sensational methods.

  • Yet another victim... (Score:4, Informative)

    by xednieht (1117791) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:32PM (#20309163) Homepage
    Perhaps it's time for Microsoft to bail on Ballmer.

    The whole Urge thing lacked the strategic finesse and vision Microsoft would otherwise be capable of.

    There's only one strategic foundation that can challenge Apple+iTunes and Urge was not it, and the Rhapsody-MTV-Verizon approach is not it either.

  • Convergence of 3 Irrelevant Dinosaurs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz (883997) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:33PM (#20309191)
    Let's see....

    Real managed to totally blow an overwhelming lead in streaming media as Realplayer was allowed to die on the vine. Add MTV to the mix. They were relevant to the music scene about 20 years ago. Now it's just reality TV plus advertising. And Verizon...a CDMA network with the highest prices in the country and a track record of disabling phone features that cut into their "buy it from us or not at all" corporate culture. Yeah, that ought to be a real powerhouse for peeing away a few hundred million of investment capital.

    *yawn*

  • ...all but dead... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Wm_K (761378) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:47PM (#20309409)
    I'm not an American, so maybe I don't understand the logic of this grammar. But this 'once-ballyhooed partnership with Microsoft appears to be all but dead.'. In other words, the partnership is everything except dead. I know that in logic and implication can't be reversed by definition. But I believe you could also write 'all but dead' as 'nothing but alive' - which would mean that MTV has a healthy partnership with Microsoft. Which makes no sense with the rest of the story. It's so confusing!

    • Re:...all but dead... (Score:5, Informative)

      by RoverDaddy (869116) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:56PM (#20309547) Homepage
      'all but xxx' is an American (or perhaps more generally English) idiom that means 'about as close to xxx as you can get without actually being there yet.'.
      On the the other hand, the phrase 'anything but xxx' means the speaker doesn't think the thing is anywhere near 'xxx' even if other people do.
      Hope this helps.
    • "All but dead" means "just short of dead". It's an archaic usage of "all but".
    • It's an idiom; just as "couldn't care less" and "could care less" are synonymous.
      • You sure about that? "Couldn't care less" means that you can't go any lower in caring about something, whereas "could care less" means that you do care about something because you could go lower in your caring but have chosen not to. I think people just don't quite understand the meanings between these two phrases.
      • It's an idiom; just as "couldn't care less" and "could care less" are synonymous.

        "could care less" isn't an idiom, it's sarcasm. For some reason, most people don't get that - even a lot of people that say it. See this link [worldwidewords.org], although that writer only kinda starts to get it near the end. It is definitely a Queens, New York example of sarcasm.

        And it's wrong to suggest that those who say it don't know that "couldn't care less" is the correct form. However we may talk here, we're not all dumb.

        btw, the proper
  • MTV, Verizon, and Real? It's the unholy trinity!

    I don't want music in a proprietary streaming format any more than I want a subscription service for my Cheerios.

    When will music companies get it? They have to compete with *free* mp3's that can be played anywhere, anytime, on a myriad of devices. Why would I pay a lot for "branded" streaming music that locks me into Verizon's craptastic service and force-feeds me what the MTV marketing nazguls think I should listen to?

  • This is not a troll! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by east coast (590680) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @02:53PM (#20309487)
    I'm not a big fan of TV and I'm not much into today's pop music so I must ask...

    Does MTV count for much of anything anymore? I know when I was in high school they had a lot of pull but the last I had seen of them was that they seemed to be like a fish in it's death throws on dry land. They tried to release a few films that saw little or no profit, their music empire was reduced to 10 music videos a day and the rest of their shows were a couple of really really bad "reality" shows that were as predictable as most pre-teen dramas on Nickelodeon.

    I'm just wondering if they ever got their shit together or if the modern pop scene is so bad that this passes as a "music" channel and people are forced to stew in their own misery and filth or defect to VH1 with all the Glenn Fry, Enya and Stevie Nicks videos one can tolerate.

    • Re:This is not a troll! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jahudabudy (714731) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @03:46PM (#20310311)
      My sister-in-law just graduated high school. She was a cheer leader, got poor grades, and seemed to be constantly bitching about one or another of the girls in her grade. So I assume she is pretty much the target audience for "teen fashion" crap. She LOVES those MTV "reality" drama shows. I seldom ever talk to her much beyond "Hi" and "Pass the salt", but I do overhear her conversations with my wife. It actually took me some time to be able to distinguish between her stories of petty drama that involved her and her peers and the stupid stories of petty drama that she was regurgitating from these shows. It still takes me some time to catch on that this story is real after she changes boyfriends; I tend to assume the new name is a new show, or new character (which also happens a lot, from what I gather).

      So, to answer your question, I have no idea. But from what I can tell, MTV counts for at least as much in my sister-in-law's life as her actual life. Seriously. I've seen her crying over breaking up with her boyfriend, and she was less sad than the time she was crying over what turned out to be a break-up in a show.
  • Personally, being in my mid 40s, I waved goodbye to the "Fashion Bus" over a decade ago and really couldn't give a toss about brand names - plus I've got this far through life without owning an Apple product to probably never owning one.

    Despite all of that, the recent advertising campaign of "Mac vs the PC", where the Mac is a hip young dude and the Windows PC is the stuffy guy in the shirt and tie does have a spark of truth in it.

    Look at the cool places where all the kids "hang out" on the Internet the

    • I think you're indeed too old. MTV != Hip With The Youngsters either nowadays. So in that respect Microsoft, for which you observation is right, would be an ideal partner. Although I don't believe Realnetworks has the coolness factor MTV would be looking for.

    • Mac vs. PC (Score:4, Funny)

      by MightyMartian (840721) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @03:10PM (#20309761) Journal

      Despite all of that, the recent advertising campaign of "Mac vs the PC", where the Mac is a hip young dude and the Windows PC is the stuffy guy in the shirt and tie does have a spark of truth in it.
      I think they've got the characterizations completely wrong. The Mac Guy should be some infeminite clothing designer type who grabs his crotch a lot and brags about the size of his penis, while PC Guy should be a fiery, butchy lesbian dominatrix who chases Mac Guy around demanding "Slow down, girly-boy, I want to insert Office 2008 into ya!"
  • They say opposites attract.

    The negation is true as well!
  • Yet another sign that today's huge companies are not delivering on any front - customer satisfaction, efficient use of resources, maximizing return to shareholders. Instead of the promised capitalist competition and efficiency, we are seeing economy locked down by companies that survive only based on buying and killing promising startups, bribing senators to pass laws that selectively benefit their business (like draconian patent system) and a "rich white boys" club that doesn't welcome any newcomers.

    Under

  • Awesome! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Hawthorne01 (575586) on Tuesday August 21 2007, @03:27PM (#20310055)
    Now when a music video comes on MTV, it'll be even easier to jump online and download the song that was just played.

    That is, if MTV ever showed music videos anymore...

    If MTV had 1/2 a clue, they'd convince their corporate masters at Viacom to drop the suit against YouTube, team up with YouTube as their music video section, make sure that every music video on YouTube had a link on it to an MTV online store selling DRM-Free MP'3, and then split the profits with Google. Anything else is just playing catchup with Apple. Using music videos driving music sales was their business model in the 80's, and it can be once again if they move fast enough, and any online music store that doesn't take the iPod into account is doomed to failure before it even launches.

    • I'd almost forgotten Rhapsody even existed anymore with the rise of iTunes. I remember when Real originally rolled out their service, it seems like forever ago.

      Unlikely, given that Real purchased Rhapsody they didn't create it. The bought it as part of their acquisition of listen.com

      I've subscribed to Rhapsody for many years. I don't know why you say they couldn't make it work?

      I've always been more prone to losing CDs than collecting them, so a subscription service suits me perfectly. That it works thro

      • Well, I should have been more clear, they didn't capture market saturation like iTunes has.

        Me, I'm all for alternatives. Rhapsody, Napster, iTunes, give me more options, and let me decide!

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