Jeremy Darroch says he regrets closure of Sky Songs, which was similar to model of Apple's iTunes
Sky chief executive Jeremy Darroch has admitted that one of his
biggest regrets is closing Sky Songs, the ill-fated music service he now
believes could have rivalled Spotify.
BSkyB launched the music subscription service, which bore hallmarks of the models adopted by Apple's iTunes and a then much smaller scale Spotify, in 2009 with much fanfare and the ambitious aim of signing up "millions of homes".
However, a little over a year later the satellite broadcaster pulled the plug, saying it had been "unable to reach a large enough customer base."
"A couple of years ago we launched a great service called Sky Songs," said Darroch, speaking at the Advertising Week Europe conference in London on Tuesday. "I look at what Spotify are doing today, it is doing really well, and Sky Songs at the time was very, very similar to that. We got out of it too early. I kind of regret that. We could have built a good business."
Darroch said it was not his decision to close the service, and that he wished he had backed Sky Songs for longer, but that at the time the company was also focusing on projects such as the roll-out of high-definition services to its 10 million TV customers.
Long-serving Glamour editor Jo Elvin, also a panellist in the session, admitted that her toughest business moment had been the arrival of a flood of weekly magazines into the women's market that threatened the livelihood of the monthlies almost a decade ago.
"About 2005, when weekly magazines started to become a solid force of competition, there was a lot of talk how it was all over for the monthlies," she said. "I had people queuing to tell me that. It was an important moment for me. That is the time to knuckle down and focus on what are your strengths, what is it the magazine does well. The minute we stopped thinking we have to try and be a weekly somehow that is when it all clicked. It is about holding your nerve".
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| Jeremy Darroch, chief executive of Sky, says it was not his decision to close Sky Songs Photograph: Eamonn McCabe for the Guardian |
BSkyB launched the music subscription service, which bore hallmarks of the models adopted by Apple's iTunes and a then much smaller scale Spotify, in 2009 with much fanfare and the ambitious aim of signing up "millions of homes".
However, a little over a year later the satellite broadcaster pulled the plug, saying it had been "unable to reach a large enough customer base."
"A couple of years ago we launched a great service called Sky Songs," said Darroch, speaking at the Advertising Week Europe conference in London on Tuesday. "I look at what Spotify are doing today, it is doing really well, and Sky Songs at the time was very, very similar to that. We got out of it too early. I kind of regret that. We could have built a good business."
Darroch said it was not his decision to close the service, and that he wished he had backed Sky Songs for longer, but that at the time the company was also focusing on projects such as the roll-out of high-definition services to its 10 million TV customers.
Long-serving Glamour editor Jo Elvin, also a panellist in the session, admitted that her toughest business moment had been the arrival of a flood of weekly magazines into the women's market that threatened the livelihood of the monthlies almost a decade ago.
"About 2005, when weekly magazines started to become a solid force of competition, there was a lot of talk how it was all over for the monthlies," she said. "I had people queuing to tell me that. It was an important moment for me. That is the time to knuckle down and focus on what are your strengths, what is it the magazine does well. The minute we stopped thinking we have to try and be a weekly somehow that is when it all clicked. It is about holding your nerve".
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