Napster, the online music retailer, announced that it's partnering with Circuit City Stores to launch a new music download service.
The new venture will be called Circuit City + Napster, and will be run by the Napster subscription service.
Unlimited access to the service will cost $14.95 a month. For those subscribing for the first time, they will get the first month free, plus an additional 5 free downloads. People can sign up starting on the 29th of April.
For those wanting individual songs, they will cost 99 cents each. Circuit City stores will carry prepaid download cards that will be bundled in 15, 25 and 60 tracks.
Circuit City (CC) needed this as last year Best Buy (BBY) teamed up with RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody service.
Phil Leigh, senior analyst at Inside Digital Media said, "Best Buy and Circuit City have recognized the trends here. In Best Buy's case, they sell more CDs than Circuit City, but it was clear their CD business was shrinking."
With the shrinking CD business, this was a must for Circuit City, as they needed to establish themselves as an online destination for music.
With Napster, I like what they're trying to do. The fact that they've even survived is impressive to me. Now they're gradually increasing their paid subscriber base, which should grow even beyond its current number of around 566,000 with the Circuit City deal.
Napster is also the exclusive subscription provider for AOL (TWX).
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