MTV will announce a partnership within the next few weeks with music application service provider RioPort Inc. to provide downloads of music from major record labels. The move is the latest step in MTV’s convergence efforts, dubbed MTV360, a range of multimedia offerings from MTV, MTV2 and MTV.com.
“It’s in our blood to constantly reinvent ourselves and evolve and change to the tastes of young people,” said Van Toffler, president of MTV and MTV2. “There will be a much stronger emphasis on 360 because it is what drives the passions of our audiences’ deeper connection to music and musicians.”
The main reason MTV has partnered with RioPort is that its technology has been approved by record labels to protect music on the Internet while allowing users to download music and transfer it to portable devices for a fee. The network hopes to fill a void left by the potential demise of Napster.