Nate Lanxon - CNet

Tuesday 2 September 2008, 10:52am
BBC to launch music download store

BBC Worldwide, Auntie's commercial arm, is developing a music download service, offering streamed for free and paid download works from its archive of music that bands have recorded for TV and radio in BBC studios.

The Beeb's radio and television music shows frequently feature live sessions recorded at BBC HQ, often of current singles, acoustic versions of popular tracks, or cover versions of other artists' work. Radio 1's Live Lounge is a popular destination for pop artists, not to mention the John Peel Sessions. And don't forget the BBC has exclusive rights to broadcast Glastonbury.

Naturally, performances are always well-recorded, and on Radio 1 often get requested for replay by fans. But what's better than playing these tracks for no extra cost over the airwaves? Why, getting fans to pay for them, of course.

Beeb there, done that
It's not untrodden territory, however. BBC sessions have featured as B-sides to CD singles before now and as bonus tracks on albums, such as on Gomez's recently released anniversary version of Bring It On. And of course back in 1994, a massive collection of The Beatles' BBC recordings were finally released on CD.

So far, major label support for the BBC Worldwide project comes only from EMI, but MusicWeek reports that talks are underway with other major labels. A source also claimed that the earliest the service could launch is January 2009.

I'm totally behind this venture, assuming it doesn't abuse us with DRM and low bit-rate encoding. After all, we paid for these recordings as part of our TV licences in the first place. Well, our dads did.

The free streaming option is said to be ad-supported -- a move that may annoy UK licence payers.

If nothing else, it'll allow smaller bands to release their BBC sessions without becoming the next Beatles or Led Zeppelin -- another band that released a live BBC session CD.