TiVo takes Rhapsody music to the living room

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 10 October 2007 02:42

Your IT - Entertainment

The Rhapsody music subscription service is now available on TiVo.

Rhapsody - jointly owned and operated by RealNetworks and MTV Networks - offers a catalogue of millions of tracks on an all-you-can-eat basis.

TiVo gains as the deal delivers extra functionality to its broadband-connected PVRs - albeit at extra cost to the consumer - while Rhapsody stands to benefit from a widening of its subscriber base, increasing economies of scale.

"By adding music to our portfolio of broadband offerings, TiVo is the only universal entertainment provider in the living room," said Tom Rogers, CEO and president of TiVo.

"Together, TiVo and Rhapsody have extended the personal viewing experience on TiVo into music, providing consumers with an incredibly easy way to access their favorite artists from their television set.  Our customers can not only navigate through hundreds of TV channels and thousands of movie downloads, they now have access to millions of songs all on their television set," he added.

Rob Glaser, chairman and CEO of RealNetworks, said "By partnering with TiVo, we can now give consumers easy and unlimited access to Rhapsody’s library of four million songs from the comfort of their sofa."

As with TV content, TiVo users may use the Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down buttons to rate music, and Rhapsody will recommend music based on these ratings, expressed tastes and observed habits.

The service costs $US12.99 per month, the same as a Rhapsody Unlimited subscription that (despite the name) only allows the music to be played on a computer but not transferred to a portable device. Existing Rhapsody subscribers can access their libraries via TiVo at no extra charge, and TiVo subscribers are being given a 30-day free trial.

RealNetworks and TiVo first announced the collaboration in early January.