In UK, digital radio listeners will soon be able to buy songs as soon as they hear them, at the touch of a button, through a service to be launched by radio technology and media firm UBC Media. It will be available in London in the first quarter of next year and nationwide from May. The company has done deals with radio groups and music groups Universal, EMI and Warner.
The new service will not work with current digital radios. But UBC expects some to be upgradeable with a USB plugin while enabled models should be on the market by the end of next year. Customers pay though their mobile phones, and at an estimated GBP 1.25 per track, the service costs more than iTunes, where songs are 79p each. A trial this summer in conjunction with Heart in Birmingham showed consumers bought on average seven songs a week, compared with UBC’s prediction for around sever per month. More details in the UBC release here.