Spotify Gains Access to Beatport Music and Videos

Spotify's deal with Beatport, announced Wednesday, will also bring programming from the dozens of music festivals around the world operated by Beatport's parent company, SFX Entertainment, which was founded three years ago by the media mogul Robert F.X. Sillerman to capitalize on the growing popularity of dance music.

Beatport, founded 11 years ago, began as an iTunes-like download service specializing in dance music, with many of its songs available nowhere else online. It has since expanded into an all-purpose media hub for the dance world, with news and information about DJs. This year, it introduced its own streaming service.

SFX bought Beatport in early 2013 for $58.6 million (roughly Rs. 373 crores). SFX went public in October 2013, but this year the company announced a plan to go private again through a buyout offer from Sillerman that would value the company at $774 million (roughly Rs. 4,928 crores). A "go shop" period to solicit alternative offers ends Friday.

Spotify, which has 75 million users around the world, including 20 million paying subscribers, also this week introduced personalized playlists for its listeners. Apple's new music service, Apple Music, was introduced last month. In addition to a subscription streaming service to compete with Spotify, Rhapsody, Google Play and others, Apple Music emphasizes its "curated" playlists.

Also Wednesday, Rhapsody, the service that pioneered streaming music by subscription in 2001, announced that it had reached 3 million paying customers.

© 2015 New York Times News Service