The BBC may have a music streaming service up its sleeve, taking on the likes of Spotify and Rdio in an iPlayer-for-music kind of scenario.
That's a lot of very different services to consider so let's break it down.
The Daily Telegraph is reporting that the Beeb will launch a musical equivalent of iPlayer, bringing its vast library of music recordings to the web under the Playlister banner.
It also says this service will be free to licence payers, but the paper doesn't say whether or not there'll be time limitations on music as there are with TV programmes on iPlayer.
Islands in the stream
The music would be available on a streaming-basis, just like Spotify, Rdio, Deezer, Rara and all manner of other music-streaming services.
That raises the obvious question of wouldn't this effectively free BBC-run streaming scenario basically put all that lot out of business in the UK?
Not necessarily; according to the Telegraph (and we've asked the BBC but it's staying pretty quiet on this one), Auntie has been struggling to clear licensing rights with the labels on this kind of thing.
That means it's possible that we'll see the Beeb team up with Spotify, Deezer or even iTunes – especially given that the BBC has supposedly been in talks with the lot of them.
We've been in touch with a host of streaming outlets in the UK to ask what they make of all this, but everyone's being strangely quiet.
The BBC reiterated its statement to us, giving nothing away: "The BBC is regularly in conversation with digital music providers about how we strengthen radio's position as the number one place for discovering music in the UK."
The rumours seem spurious, but let's face it: you're no one in this business until you've been rumoured to be launching a music streaming service.
From The Telegraph
