MobiTV to launch music video service with Universal

MobiTV will be Universal Music Group's first customer for its new music video service. The two companies have signed a deal that will immediately allow MobiTV to distribute and stream 1100 music videos from Universal artists over four new mobile music channels through MobiTV's growing network of wireless carriers.

Universal earlier announced a relationship with Adamind to run the transcoding technology necessary to translate the record label's audio and video content into a format that can be displayed or heard over hundreds of different mobile phones.

The MobiTV deal, however, will be Universal's first major channel for video content, though it has signed numerous deals with streaming and downloading mobile music providers to distribute digital audio content. And the deal will certainly be the largest music video venture in the industry. Other record labels have distributed music videos on an individual basis over wireless networks or have launched less ambitious services: Warner Music launched a video download service over at Verizon Wireless' V Cast network, though the service was limited to only a dozen videos.

Instead of a pay-per-download model, however, the new Universal service will come as part of the MobiTV package, which carriers sell for monthly subscriptions, usually $7 to $10 a month. MobiTV will initially offer four music channels, focused on specific genres like hip hop, pop and alternative. Though MobiTV will have the full video catalog of 1100 videos, MobiTV said it would only be showcasing 375 of them over the four channels.