Major Label Music Streaming Service To Cease

Australian-based music streaming service Songl appears to be the latest casualty in the competitive music streaming market, with the major label-backed service to cease in late September.

Run by Sydney-based Digital Music Distribution, the service is backed by labels Universal Music Australia and Sony Music Entertainment Australia as well as Southern Cross Austereo, who bought into the company in 2012.

"Unfortunately, we are not continuing our on demand music subscription service after September 25, 2014"

After launching last year today Songl had advised today that “Unfortunately, we are not continuing our on demand music subscription service after September 25, 2014.”

They add, “We'd like to thank you again for your support of Songl and hope you continue to enjoy your music" and instruct users to download created playlists to "use them with another music streaming service of your choice."

A call from theMusic.com.au to Songl CEO Mark Shaw has not been immediately returned.

Songl had hoped to leverage Southern Cross Austereo’s on-air talent, which at the time included Kyle & Jackie-O, to educate the Australian public about the streaming service market. When they launched in March 2013 Shaw told theMusic.com.au that opening up the market to subscription streaming services was key to the platform’s success and was reluctant to comment on the crowded market.

“We'll see what happens,” he said. “Our position is despite the hype, revenues for subscription service are very, very small. There was a report that came out of ARIA that said 0.5 percent of all music revenue was attributable to streaming, that's $2 million. That's not a very large number.

“So we are coming to the market with a desire to educate the market about streaming, and we can do that because we've got media support with SCA and their various assets that we can utilise.”

Shortly after launch the service came under attack from the independent sector, who said the service was “inferior” to its competitors due to a perceived shortage of deals with independent labels.

Charles Caldas, CEO of independent label group Merlin, said at the time, “Why anyone would pay good money to subscribe to a service that doesn't include some of the leading artists in the world, including Adele, Nick Cave, The Lumineers, the XX, Grizzly Bear and hundreds of thousands of other tracks by independent artists?”

Adding that negotiations between the two parties had never really got of the ground Caldas said, “Spending anything on this service is a simple waste of money.”

Shaw responded to theMusic.com.au saying that “We're excited to have launched Songl with all the major labels and a number of independents, and we're looking forward to developing even more relationships as time goes on.”

Earlier this year French-based streaming service Deezer closed its Sydney office after entering Australia as art of the 2012 flurry.

Currently music streaming services available in Australia include 7digital, Bandit.fm, Beatport, BigPond Music, Blackberry World, Deezer, Getmusic.com.au, Google Play, Guvera, iHeart, Radio, iTunes, JB Hi Fi NOW, MOG, Music Unlimited, Nokia Mix Radio, Optus, Pandora, rara.com, Rdio, Samsung Music Hub, Songl, Spotify, The InSong, Vevo, VidZone, Xbox Music and YouTube.