Time to subscribe to new consumption methods?

We should look at Sky's example when it comes to subscription services' efforts to change mindsets

Imagine someone handing you the keys to the biggest record shop in the world and then allowing you to play all the releases you want as many times as you fancy - all for pretty much the price of a round of drinks. Well, that is effectively how a monthly digital music subscription works.

If you have not yet got round to checking out, say, Napster's subscription service then, when you do, prepare to set aside a good few hours of your time because these things are highly addictive. You can uncover forgotten gems, discover artists and tracks you have never come across or heard before and even play music you may already own on CD but it would take the music fan's equivalent of an archaeological dig to locate.

Despite this potential, however, music subscription sales are hardly anywhere at present. According to Jupiter Research, market leader Napster has only around 50,000 UK subscribers currently, which is a pittance when put alongside far in excess of 1m individual tracks that are permanently downloaded in the market every single week.

But that small number is hardly surprising when you consider just how little awareness there is of such services beyond the real music aficionados and the mindset shift it is going to take for both the industry and the public in regard to music being consumed in this different way. It is not dissimilar to a decade and half ago when Sky started showing live Premiership matches to a tiny audience that was quite possibly outnumbered by those watching in the ground. Now, Sky has some 8m subscribers in the UK, all willing to pay an additional fee each month on top of their annual licence fee for extra channels they would not otherwise receive.