NEW YORK (Reuters) - America Online said on Monday it would rename its
fledgling cable music video channel and offer more content in an
effort to steer viewers to an AOL Web site.
The channel, originally called "My Music Channel," will now be named
"AOL Music On Demand."
AOL is aiming to promote its AOL Music videos and original programing
on the channel carried by Time Warner Cable, hoping to entice viewers
to find more material on its free Web site AOLMusic.com.
Launched eight months ago with little fanfare, the cable channel lets
viewers click their remote controls to order up videos and AOL
programing, once available only to paying subscribers to its
high-speed Internet service, for free.
The cable channel is being used as a marketing tool to persuade
non-AOL members to find even more free content on its Web site,
bucking a trend in the media industry toward charging for content. New
York Times Co. said last Friday it was mulling a plan to charge for
its online newspaper edition.
AOL, the Dulles, Virginia-based unit of Time Warner Inc. is betting
that giving away more free material will help it boost online
advertising dollars amid an ongoing subscriber defection.
AOL has lost millions of members this year, but Time Warner said
it expects the unit to post growth in full-year 2004 profit before
items in the low to mid-teens percentage range.
"Now we're much more interested in extending the AOL brand into the
nonmember audience and building that exposure," an AOL spokeswoman
said.
AOL Music On Demand is now available in 30 markets, after entering
New York and New Jersey this month.
NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily
media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . New articles daily.
*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without
profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the
understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic
issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I
believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish
to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go
beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner, in this instance, Reuters News Service.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
(no name) ((no email))