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NOW TV channel to launch later this month

By | Published on Friday 11 October 2013

Now! That's What I Call Music

“The most successful hits brand in the world” says the press release, so that’s definitely a fact, is coming to a TV set near you this month. Providing your TV set is plugged into a Sky or FreeSat receiver. Yes, on 23 Oct NOW That’s What I Call Music TV will go live.

Which means that the world’s biggest music content companies – Universal Music and Sony Music – having done their best to dominate music video on the internet through their Vevo joint venture, are now trying to takeover music video TV too, they being the owners of the Now franchise, of course, since Sony acquired EMI’s slice of the classic compo brand earlier this year.

All they need to do now is launch their own iTunes rival and all of us who laughed at the majors for trying to control the digital music experience in the early days of the web – “just make the music and let others deliver it to the fans” we said – may have to eat our hats. Or something like that.

Though anyone concerned about Universal and Sony getting even more powerful in the music delivery space, the new Now TV channel will find itself competing with Vevo’s growing TV-based services, and just because the two brands have common ownership, that probably won’t stop them trying to get one up on the other.

Universal affiliates All Around The World, which already runs music TV channels like Clubland TV and Planet Pop, will actually operate the new service, which will be listed on the Sky EPG as NOW Music, except from 22 Nov to 27 Dec when it will become NOW Christmas playing Mariah Carey and Shakin Stevens on a loop.

Confirming the latest spin off from the NOW franchise, Steve Pritchard, Joint MD for the brand, said: “It’s a perfect time for us to be doing this. The NOW generation is the one that corresponds almost exactly with the advent of the music video”.

Meanwhile All Around The World TV’s COO Simon Sadler added: “A NOW Music TV channel is such an obvious and exciting idea and when better to go for it than by launching just ahead of the year’s biggest NOW album, on the back of one of the biggest NOW summer albums ever. It’s also a great opportunity to utilise one of the most recognisable Christmas brands in the UK”.



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