Music Plus Television Network (MusicPlusTV) is what MTV was in the 80’s: fun, young, and actually about music. It is an online music video/concert station that launched in June of 2005. Earlier this week they announced a seven-figure round of funding and licensing agreements that made us take note.
MusicPlusTV is a network of shows, each with its own genre to focus on. It reminds me a lot of D7TV, except D7TV is not music-centered and it is aimed at the mobile market. MusicPlusTV is musical content for your computer screen.
The shows stream live at scheduled times so that viewers can AIM video requests.
“AIM is actually a pretty important tool for our audience participation on just about every show we have,” said Bryan Kim, a spokesperson for MusicPlusTV. “We’ll have viewers IMing, requesting videos, questions for guests, etc. from all over the world, which is a big reason we stream live – for the interactivity.”
Shows are streamed to Windows Media Player within the browser. Kim said that MusicPlusTV’s goal is to broadcast a mixture of new bands and major-label bands. Snoop Dogg recently did a station ID for the company and other in-studio guests have included Jurassic 5, Living Legends, Jon B, Planet Asia, Blackalicious, and more. They also have several exclusive concert footage on the site.
“I would say we lean on introducing more music,” Kim said. “But the main thing is to provide a balance from all the top 40, limited playlists you get at radio stations, and MTV, and the like.”
Kim said that the company is close to seeing one million hits per month but he wouldn’t give an exact user number, nor would he disclose exactly how much funding the company received from Kenai Investment LLC.
On Wednesday, MusicPlusTV announced agreements with Windows Media Guide, Akimbo, Tvext, and Globe7 to distribute MusicPlusTV programs through their respective sites.
This is one of the coolest music video sites I’ve seen but I have to admit none of these genres are my kind of music. I don’t consume content that is nearly this hip but if I did, I would give this site full props because it is well organized, production value is high, the streams are clean, and the shows have plenty of musical content instead of some VJ who wants to chat about their own life. If I were cool, I definitely would say this company is cool.