MTV have confirmed that they will launch their own digital music service in 2005. Speaking at US trade conference Music 2.0, MTV's SVP Jason Hirschhorn said the new service, based around a bespoke player, would "blow the space open".
Quite how they plan to do that isn't clear. Certainly the features promised by the service - a-la-carte downloads, programmed and personalised streaming radio and an on-demand music subscription service - don't sound like anything new. It is more likely MTV will try to steal some ground from the more established digital music platforms by tapping into the network's rich archives of original material.
Needless to say the new service will be heavily promoted across the MTV channels - whether they will eventually integrate the service with their TV output utilising interactive digital TV technologies is unclear, though presumably it is a real possibility.