Excite@Home and MTVi Launch Excite Music

Excite@Home and The MTVi Group, announced the debut of Excite Music (music.excite.com). The co-branded music channel was originally announced in April, and was initially expected to be up by this summer.

The Excite Music channel features programming for Excite@Home's broadband customers, as well as features for narrowband users accessing the page through its portal.

The content on the channel includes Internet radio stations through MTVi's Sonicnet.com, and streaming audio and video news from MTVi including, "You Hear it First." Musicplex and musicmusicmusic inc. are providing additional Internet radio stations, and Listen.com is offering its music download directory of free and for-purchase music. In addition, Universal Music Group is providing for-purchase downloads.

Excite is hoping to grab a piece of the market for digital music downloads, which Forrester Research projects will consist of 19 million customers by 2002. However, this market has not yet taken shape, as the Napster debate is still dangling unsettled, and it has yet to be proven that consumers will pay for digital downloads.

MTV has agreed to run spots on their television properties promoting the co-branded site, and MTVi's sales force will be responsible for selling the advertising on the site.

"At a corporate level, music is part of Excite@Home's evolving online experience. I believe that we're building the best marketing vehicle on the Internet for labels and artists to showcase their music today and in the future,'' said Byron Smith, executive vice president of Consumer Broadband Services and chief marketing officer of Excite@Home.