Record companies try adding value

Record companies are looking for ways to make more than 99 cents per song. One new effort is to bundle a group of added attractions around a new release. Epic, a Sony label, is offering a $17 “season pass” for fans of their group, The Fray.

"The pass delivers songs, video footage and photos, but spaces out the offering over several weeks in the hope of holding consumers' attention and justifying the premium price."

The music industry is flailing about, looking for new revenue streams. It may be that producing value-added bundles of this sort might be one way out of their dilemma. Interestingly, their problem has been caused by the collapse of bundled deals -- albums -- that they have been offering for generations. Downloads have de-bundled albums, and consumers are choosing to buy the one or two songs per album that they care about and ignore the useless filler songs that the record companies had been forcing their customers to pay for.

These new bundles will work only if enough consumers see the extra material as being of real value.