Hungama and telco BSNL Ltd today announced a formal launch of their digital entertainment store exclusively available for BSNL broadband subscribers that number some four million. The service, which is locked to allow access only to BSNL subscribers, lets users download unlimited music and videos for less than the price of a regular music CD–Rs149. Currently, there are some 65,000 songs and 2,000 music videos. Access to unlimited game downloads will set you back by another Rs49 a month.
Files that are downloaded under this service tracks the status of subscription and cannot be used once the user doesn’t renew his subscription. So in essence, users are renting unlimited content at a fee.
We spoke to Sidhartha Roy, COO at Hungama, and he said the idea came from the fact that an affordable price point had to be offered because the biggest fight was against piracy. “To fight piracy, we need to offer better value, and better experience. And we hope that’s what we are doing with this initiative.”
The service was softlaunched a few months ago, but Roy declined to share any numbers. “But the entire top brass of BSNL, including the chairman, was present at the launch of what is essentially a value added service, says something about how seriously they are taking this.”
When asked about how the revenue share was structured between the telco and the content owners, he said: “Let me just say that it is extremely positive for the content partners. From a government telco, we have a much better deal compared with private telcos.”

{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/07\/17\/419-hungama-bsnl-launches-music-portal-unlimited-rental-at-rs149\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_5f7c23cd2d03cf8325871b36d61f5e4e","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}