NEW YORK—Motorola Inc.’s iRadio service is the latest to woo music lovers with unreleased content, with the vendor inking a deal with Sony BMG to allow subscribers to access “leaked” albums before they hit the shelves.
The music company has created a channel at the top of iRadio’s offerings that will offer access to music before its official release. Sony BMG’s J/Arista Records is the first to provide content for the channel with the new album from performing artist Monica, which became available to the public Oct. 3.
IRadio provides hundreds of commercial-free music, news and talk stations for wireless users. Subscribers synchronize their handsets with the service and play back the content through their car stereos via a Bluetooth connection.
“The growth in mobile services, from ringtones to Motorola’s iRadio, is astounding and continues to provide groundbreaking opportunities that benefit our artists and super-serve their fans,” said Tom Corson, general manager of J/Arista.
Wireless carriers and digital music providers increasingly are looking to gain an edge by providing exclusive content from performing artists. British pop star Robbie Williams, for instance, has agreed to provide exclusive content to T-Mobile U.K., and European mobile music company Musiwave last month distributed content from Beyonce Knowles’ album “B’Day” before the tunes became available to the public.
