BigShinyThing

Saturday 24 February 2007

Unsubstantiated and extremely viable rumour of the week.

Viacom executives are in London negotiating the purchase of LastFM, the London based “online social music network” (read: internet radio station), according to a music business source familiar with the negotiations. The purchase price is said to be $450 million dollars.

Viacom has been reportedly looking to expand its online presence. Reports have claimed that Viacom executives were disappointed that they did not pickup YouTube. LastFM recently signed a deal with Warner Music Group giving the internet radio station the rights to play WMG’s entire music catalog. Shortly before YouTube signed its deal to be acquired by Google, the video sharing network signed several rights deals with video content owners. There has been some speculation that LastFM’s recent dealmaking might have cleared the way for an acquisition by a larger media or internet company.

Neither Viacom nor LastFM returned calls this morning seeking comment on the rumor.

We can believe this. LastFM is fantastic and for the owner of MTV to buy it makes perfect sense. Last.fm’s music recommendation model is a brilliant way to break new acts — in the way that MTV was waaaay back in the day. What’s more, the MySpace generation isn’t interested in shiny music videos any more — to them, it’s all about the music. Ironically, we may be seeing radio kill the video star.

Via Plasticbag.

Posted by Anne-Fay | Tags: Last.FM. music, MTV, Viacom
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