(CelebrityAccess News Service) — Virgin Megastores has just launched its digital music service promising consumers the cheapest price per track package in the market and a pledge to 'save the single'. Virgin has teamed up with leading digital music download company OD2, set up by musician Peter Gabriel, to offer the service.
Music buyers visiting www.virgin.com/downloads can choose from over 200,000 digital tracks for as little as 60p a track, making it the cheapest place to buy digital music in the UK.
Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group, said: "Our new service will be instrumental in putting the British single firmly on the road to recovery. Virgin has been a pioneer in the music industry since our earliest days, and our low-cost digital music service is in the same tradition. We want to make it simple – and cheap – for music fans to sample and buy music digitally. Music fans are driving the demand for digital music and now the technology is there, the industry is behind it and – with the introduction of our service – prices are affordable for all."
Unlike most other services, Virgin's digital music package is based on the successful 'pay-as-you-go' model adopted by the mobile phone industry rather than a subscription-based approach. This means music buyers only pay for what they want, ensuring money isn't wasted on subscriptions they don't use up in full.
The price of the "pay as you go" packages starts at 99p which gives consumers enough credits to download and burn a chart download single (£0.99 per track). The more consumers spend, the cheaper the price of the download. Prices go up to £29.99 which gives consumers enough credits to download and burn 50 chart download singles (£0.60 per track). –Bob Grossweiner and Jane Cohen
