August 14, 2005
Let me entertain you... on your mobile phone
He has had worldwide sales of more than 32 million and has had 19 top 10 hits, but that is still not enough for Robbie Williams. The 31-year-old singer will make his mark again in October when the singles from his new album are made available to mobile telephone users two days before they go on sale on CD. The Telegraph reports.
"Williams, his record company EMI and the mobile telephone operator T-Mobile have agreed an 18-month deal to give music fans exclusive access to songs on their telephones before they reach record shops. The release of Trippin', from the new album Intensive Care, is expected to be the first new single to reach fans via the mobile network.
Each song will cost from £1.50 to download, the same as T-Mobile charges for a ring tone."
Following in the wake of Crazy Frog, the mobile telephone ring tone that topped the charts in May, the deal is the latest leap forward in the digital music revolution.
... Matthis Immel, the vice-president of consumer marketing at T-Mobile, said the deal with Williams heralded a new era for the music and communications industries.
"Mobile phones are set to become the dominant digital music players," he said. "Three hundred million people have mobile phones in Europe and within five to six years the majority of phones will have digital music capability. That far exceeds the number of iPods."
The increased capacity of mobile telephones to download and play music would also affect the way people shopped, he said. "If you hear a song you like on the radio while you're in your car, you'll be able to download it immediately."
John Leahy, the marketing and creative director of EMI Records, said the partnership "signposted the way forward in the music business" but it was unlikely that digital music telephones would replace the CD and CD player.
"Mobile phones are a new market, but CD sales are still very important to us and will be in the foreseeable future. CDs will still dominate in five years' time."
Williams said agreements between artists and mobile companies to distribute music would become increasingly popular. "The future is music by mobile," he said.
Related:
-- Robbie rings the changes - Badboy rocker Robbie Williams's concerts will be broadcast live on mobile phones around the world in a deal set to revolutionise the music industry
-- Robbie Williams becomes first artist to launch greatest hits album on memory card - a tiny stamp size gizmo that slots straight into a mobile phone to deliver music on the move.
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