Rdio unveils new service

Streaming service Rdio this week began offering Australians a half-price $5.99 monthly subscription for its latest key feature Rdio Select. Overseas users get it for $3.99 a month.

Rdio Select has two components. A radio service similar to iTunes Radio, which comes with high quality audio (320 kbps), and allows users to listen without ads and skip as many songs as they like. Rdio users can now go into the settings tab and adjust the available kbps from 64 through to 320, based on where and when they are connecting live to the app or when downloading songs from Rdio onto their device for offline listening.

Rdio Select also offers a daily access of 25 songs only.

Rdio Head of Territories Australia & New Zealand Colin Blake told TMN the feature follows continued study of how people react to different subscription and free models. “Our hopes were to always try to be as responsive as possible to the needs of music lovers and the music industry. I think with Rdio Select we have created a new opportunity that can be positive for both.”

Rdio now has four tiers: its free Stations version, Rdio Select, Rdio Unlimited and the Rdio Family Plan.

The company’s Product Senior Vice-President Chris Becherer, addressing this restriction of unlimited downloads, said that Rdio Select was designed for listeners who were “not super hardcore music fans who want to download masses of songs.”

Rdio Select’s release preceded reports coming out of the US which suggest Apple’s upcoming music streaming service will drop the Beats branding, and go out as Apple Music.

Rdio, like all streaming services, is finalising the renewal of its licensing agreements with labels. Blake told TMNthat while he’s not directly involved in the conversations (the agreements are globally managed) the conversations “have all been positive.”

“The industry seems to be very in favour of our models and our positioning,” said Blake. “We have always strived to be the music service that works as closely with the industry as possible and is responsive to the needs and attitudes of labels, artists, publishers and other key industry relationships.

“Here in Australia I constantly get positive feedback about how Rdio conducts themselves within the industry, our product and our approach to working with our partners.”

While Rdio is a privately owned company and does not share its number of paid subscribers, the service has 10s of millions of registered users globally, offering a catalogue of around 35 million songs in 85 countries.