(18 November 2006 6:20 pm)

NEW DELHI: Mobile telephony major Bharti Airtel has launched its 'instant mobile music' programme in a techno-collaboration with South Korea's second largest business group SKC&C.

The highly simplified music ringtone, call-back tone and full track download system now asks the mobile phone user to take the handset to one metre from any sound system in which his or her favourite song is playing, dial 393, wait 30 seconds and get a download. The search costs the user Rs 2 and download costs Rs 15. The latter is roughly the same as downloading from Airtel's music website, but the USP is that it is instant and caters to the user's choice.

What makes the system better, which operates through SKC&C's SongCatcher technology, is the instantness, the music on demand and on impulse, Airtel's vice president VAS and New Products Development, Harish Gandhi said at a media briefing in the capital yesterday.

"We did a survey and realised that customers now want to access music through various ways, and they want it here and now. Downloading music is an impulse and we are now going to give the customer that facility."

Gandhi clarified that this could be done from any handset, not those connected to Airtel alone. How would it cannibalise its present revenue earnings through the old system and through the website? Gandhi told indiantelevision.com: "There could be some initial cannibalisation, I admit. But the business is based on the statistic that Airtel has had one million downloads from its old system over just the past six months, so the business is booming and will grow."

Not willing to divulge figures, however, Gandhi said that the initial revenue reduction through the old system would be offset as this is bound to become more popular, given the survey finding that customers want music on the impulse.
As of now, Airtel is providing 25,000 songs in Hindi, English and 18 Indian languages across the country. "We are trying to go regional too, and working on offering much more regional music," Gandhi said. He said also that very soon awareness campaigns will be organised in northeast and other remote areas, where too there is a craze for this music downloading.

Asked how much it cost the company to build the library, an official refused to divulge figures. Likewise about the value of the deal between Airtel and SKC&C. Gandhi later clarified that the price per song in terms of royalty depended on the package of number of songs, their popularity and how old they are. Airtel's website that can be accessed through its broadband connection has 250,000 songs "from KL Saigal to the present-day hits".

The Conference agreed that the transition period from analogue to digital broadcasting, which begins at 0001 UTC 17 June 2006, should end on 17 June 2015, but some countries preferred an additional five-year extension for the VHF band (174-230 MHz).