LONDON, June 6 (UPI) -- Warner Music Japan Tuesday acquired a minority stake in mobile broadcasting company FrontMedia.
FrontMedia, launched in 2005, operates a hybrid-broadcasting platform via mobile Web site Marugoto Station on NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone and KDDI, and will be the first hybrid radio and mobile broadcast service available in Japan, according to WMJ.
The company initiated the first full-length over-the-air music downloads on NTT DoCoMo and recently broadcast the first user-interactive mobile broadcast program on free mobile TV broadcast site Click.TV, said WMJ, which has been working with the company since the end of 2005.
"We're delighted to invest in FrontMedia, a company that shares our vision of constantly creating new and compelling ways for consumers to experience music content," said Lachie Rutherford, president of Warner Music Asia Pacific. "Japan has one of the world's most advanced mobile music businesses, so to be working with such a dynamic and ambitious partner there is extremely exciting."
WMJ will provide capital investment as well as content to the mobile broadcast company "in return for the opportunity to leverage their ground-breaking mobile applications, including mobile broadcasting and video streaming on all three major mobile carriers and full track downloads via DoCoMo," WMJ said in a release, also mentioning that it would undertake joint promotional initiatives and develop new products and services over mobile broadcast space with FrontMedia.
