Telstra have announced the imminent closure of their online music service BigPond Music, which will officially shut down on December 12th this year. The telco made the announcement on its Facebook page, saying it would close BigPond Music with a “heavy heart”.
“The download-to-own music market has changed a lot,” a Telstra spokesperson said in reply to a comment on Facebook. “We believe the best way for us to continue to provide great music services to our customers is via a partner model. Music is and will still be a major component of the premium content Telstra provides to thousands of Australians every day.”
“We will provide our customers more information on our plans in due course,” they added. BigPond Music customers have been advised that from December 11th at 11:59pm they will not be able to purchase songs on the service and that they will no longer be able to access their account from 11:59pm December 12th.
As BigPond Music is a purchase-to-own service, customers will retain ownership of any music downloaded by 11:59pm on December 11th. Vouchers will be redeemable until that time and customer scan also request a voucher refund.
The Telstra spokesperson also advised that the telco’s music streaming service MOG, which charges from $6.99 to $11.99 a month for web streaming, will “remain as is for the foreseeable future”.
The closure of BigPond Music will mean a lot less market competition in Australia for Apple, who on top of iTunes also acquired music streaming service and headphone manufacturer Beats earlier this year. As pointed out by Business Spectator the shifting nature and uncertain future of music consumption and pricing has already seen the closure of similar music services in Australia such as streaming site Songl.
“There’s a lot of talk of just who’s going to survive in that space among the big end of town with Pandora and Spotify,” General Manager of Fairfax Media’s Satellite Music Australia Jonathan Champion told The Age. “This is just the next one that actually appears to have moved on.”
