Microsoft and MTV To Launch URGE May 17

Almost half a year after announcing their partnership, Microsoft and MTV have unveiled the URGE music and video service URGE, integrated into Windows Media Player 11.

Over six months after the companies announced their partnership, MTV and Microsoft today unveiled URGE, the companies’ joint online music and video subscription service. URGE works a lot like other Microsoft-based subscription services, with a song catalog of about 2 million tracks from all the major distributors plus a bunch of smaller labels: tracks can be purchased outright for a 99 cent fee which should look familiar to digital music shoppers; users will also be able to subscribe to unlimited downloads for $9.95 a month, and for $14.95 a month they get the ability to transfer songs to any PlaysForSure-compatible portable device. (For those of you counting, this does not include iPods.) URGE will also feature streaming videos, with downloadable videos expected to be offered for sale later in 2006; URGE will also feature MTV-exclusive content, including artist appearances on MTV programming like MTV Unplugged and Total Request Live.

Now, you might wonder if the world needs yet another WMA-based music subscription service