Sky Offers New Music Service

British satellite TV and broadband company Sky is offering a subscription Internet music service with music from Universal.

BSkyB – or Sky, as it’s generally known – rules the satellite TV market in the UK, and has begun to wade into broadband. Now it’s planning to start a subscription Internet music service this year, using tracks from the massive Universal catalogue.

Although neither date nor pricing have been set yet, according to the BBC, the tracks, which will be streamed for a flat fee that also allows for a certain number of monthly downloads, will be DRM-free, and so can be played on any device.

Sky had also said that other music business partners might join.

"Sky already has contact with one in three British homes through our television service," said BSkyB’s chief operating officer Mike Darcey, "and we’ve got plenty of experience of running a subscription model."

Of course, even with giant backing, the service will face stiff competition from other already established, like iTunes, and the music subscription model has yet to prove itself in the British market.