Wednesday, July 05, 2006

TOWER RECORDS UNVEILS ‘TOWER RECORDS DIGITAL’ DIGITAL DOWNLOAD STORE

Tower Records, America's leading independent music and entertainment retailer, this week unveiled 'Tower Records Digital,' a music download store at Tower.com/Digital. As the most recent addition and the primary component of Tower's integrated digital media strategy, the digital music store complements its traditional retail stores, e-commerce, podcasting, and TouchView in-store kiosk presence. For over 45 years, Tower has strived to offer its customers the best selection of music available in every format imaginable. As one of the first retailers to move online in 1995, Tower soon began streaming RealAudio samples on its Tower.com site and selling 99 cent digital downloads in the Liquid Audio format well before the current craze. Tower's digital media strategy has progressed considerably in the past year by adding TouchView interactive digital music kiosks to all of its retail stores, partnering with MySpace.com for "Secret Shows," and launching the first podcasting network by a traditional retailer at TowerPod.com in March.

The launch of Tower Records Digital marks the next step in maintaining Tower's proud tradition of retailing music and entertainment, while rounding out Tower's comprehensive digital media strategy. Tower Records Digital was designed under three basic mandates: Make it easy to use, make it promotionally robust and provide better sound quality. The result is Tower Records Digital, a download destination that features digital tracks encoded at 192 kbps. It is designed as an intuitive website that easily enables Tower to bundle special promotion downloads with traditional media purchases. Tower Records Digital is powered by Puretracks, one of North America's leading digital service providers. Individual music downloads are 99¢ each and full albums begin at $9.99 each. Just like Tower stores nationwide, Tower Records Digital offers a comprehensive selection of music that our customers have come to expect, encompassing all genres of music: Pop, Rock, Hip-Hop, R&B, Country, Jazz, Classical, Blues, Electronica, World, Gospel and more. In addition, the site features 30-second song samples and the easy to browse product pages that include biographies, similar artists, artist influences, and artist followers. Additionally, new music discovery is facilitated through special tabs that highlight the Top 100, E-singles, Indie, and this week's New Releases. In the coming months, Tower Records Digital will also feature special download promotions in tandem with the "Next Big Thing" and "This Week @ Tower" - promotional programs that occur in Tower stores nationwide.

The majority of download sites serve up 128 kbps tracks to their customers, however, Tower Records Digital features all of its tracks at 192 kbps, differentiating itself with the highest quality audio downloads that are of noticeably better sound quality than the competition. Quite simply, Tower Records Digital sounds better. "With Tower Records Digital, we wanted to offer our customers a simple and intuitive way to download high-quality music," stated Jason Munyon, VP of Business Development, Tower Records. "Since 1960, Tower Records has been the leader in music and entertainment. Having the highest quality sound is as important to us as it is to our customers. Sound quality is one of the primary reasons we chose to partner with Puretracks." "Tower's ability to bundle products is also a key differentiator," continues Mr. Munyon. "We can now provide a digital music bonus or exclusive tied to the purchase of a CD or album download, offering a more integrated experience across multiple channels to our valued customers."

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