Back catalog front and center for subscription music services

SAN DIEGO--While the latest pop hits tend to dominate digital music sales on a la carte premium sites like Apple's iTunes, it's a different tune for subcription services like Nokia's Comes With Music and RealNetworks' Rhapsody, where back-catalog content is increasingly popular. "Catalog consumption is higher [on Comes With Music] than it is on a la carte," said Paul Miraldi, Nokia's global director of Ovi Music Services, during a panel discussion here Tuesday at the Mobile Entertainment Live! event.  He added between 20 percent and 30 percent of Comes With Music subscribers are downloading full albums: "People are downloading hundreds of tracks," Miraldi said. "They're coming back again and again."

Rhapsody VP of business management Neil Smith echoed Miraldi's comments. "Two-thirds of our listening is to music not in the Top 100," he said, adding that 80 percent of all music in the Rhapsody library is played at least once a month.