Virgin Digital Says Farewell September 24, 2007
Read more Broadband , Digital Audio , Gizmodo UK , MP3 , Music , Online , iPod
Digital music store Virgin Digital is closing down at the end of next month, after just two years in business. The closure might have been influenced by Richard Branson’s sell-off of its High St. Virgin Megastores last week but no one is saying.
What is known is that despite having one of the bigger music catalogues for download – around 2.5 million tracks – and being competitive on price with other digital music download services, like iTunes, the company will cease trading from October 19th. This is the message that now greets music shoppers on the Web site:
"Dear customer, we regret to announce that the Virgin Digital service is due to close. We will be taking no new customers from today, Friday 21st September. On Friday the 28th September we will cease selling tracks and access will be for current Club users only. On Friday the 19th October the site will close for all customers. If you have purchased tracks from the service then we recommend that you back up your music files – Information about backing up and re-downloading your tracks.
"If you are a current Club member you will be able to continue using the service until the date that your next payment is due, after which the service will no longer be accessible to you. To all our customers we would like to say thank you and offer our apologies for any inconvenience this might cause. We are happy to be able to offer you a 1-month free subscription to the Virgin Media digital streaming jukebox and this link will be available from next week."
If anyone else finds out more, drop us a comment.-Martin Lynch
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
Comments
While legal ownership for Virgin Digital was in Luxembourg, as is the way of these music stores, Virgin Digital was owned by Virgin Megastores; at least, that's where the office was, and where the email addresses were for the staff.
You point out that Virgin Megastores have been sold. But unlike some sales of Virgin companies, this sale doesn't include rights to the Virgin name; the new company is rebranding all its shops in November as Zavvi.
This might mean that a Zavvi-branded music store is mere weeks away (or, rather, a Zavvi-branded front-end to MusicNet, as Virgin Digital was); or, alternatively, might mean that Zavvi have been savvy (sorry) and realised that they can't compete with the iTunes monster.
Either way, I've also posted on Virgin this evening...
http://james.cridland.net/blog/2007/09/24/virgin-on-a-loss-of-brand-loyalty/
wat is it