rara was a music streaming media service. It operated between December 2011 and March 2015. It offered ad-free, on-demand music streaming from a range of major and independent record labels, including

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainmen ...

, EMI Music and

Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and t ...

, global rights agency Merlin and independent digital distributors The Orchard, INgrooves Fontana, Believe Digital, IASand VidZone Digital Media. Launched in December 2011Music service Rara.com aims for digital non-adopters
BBC News 13 December 2011 by British company rara Media Group Limited, the service featured an initial music catalogue of approximately 10 million tracks.
Daily Telegraph 13 December 2011 As of October 2013, the catalogue offered 22 million tracks and was available in 32 countries.rara partners with Toshiba
Music Week 11 October 2013 The system was accessible on both PC and Mac via the web with apps for Windows 8, iOS, and Android. A rara "web" subscription provided unlimited music streaming via the web to PC and Mac while a "premium" subscription enabled access to rara mobile apps as well as offline access to music.Australian music-streaming services compared
CNET 30 October 2012 In between February and March 2015, rara stopped accepting new subscribers and announced that the service was up for sale.Rara will be shut or sold as ceo Jez Bell exits
Music Business Worldwide on 13 March 2015Rara up for sale
CMU "Complete Music Update" on 16 February 2015 Music streaming stopped on 29 March.

Features

rara had a catalogue of over 22 million tracks licensed. It provided unlimited on-demand music streaming. Web users could create playlists which were synchronised through the cloud with their other rara devices. rara used a team to curate channels and playlists, categorised by mood, genre, era and currently trending. rara created personalised music recommendations that were both algorithmically generated and hand curated by rara's team. Powered by Dolby Pulse, rara streamed audio on web and via apps at a bitrate of 320 kbit/s.

Platforms

rara was available on web via PC and Mac and also via apps for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android and Windows 8 PCs and tablets. The rara web streaming service was launched on 13 December 2011. The rara Windows 8 app was introduced on 23 October 2012. It was the first on-demand music streaming app to launch on Windows 8 apart from Microsoft's own Xbox music service which was bundled with all Windows 8 devices. The rara iPhone app was introduced on 23 October 2012. The rara iPad app was launched on 23 October 2012. The rara Android app was launched on 13 December 2011. BMW ConnectedDrive Online Entertainment was first announced by BMW on 19 May 2013 for BMW 5 Series 2013 facelift models. The first compatible vehicles with Online Entertainment included became available to drive from late July 2013. On 6 December 2013 Online Entertainment with rara became available to purchase in all BMW Series 1-7, the M series and the X5 model.

Territories

rara was available in 32 countries: US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and South Africa. rara individually tailors its music service for every territory, with local language support and a localised music catalogue for each country.

Partnerships

rara was partnered with HP, BMW,

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, ...

and Lenovo and was preloaded onto a range of HP PCs and Lenovo Windows 8 and Android PCs, tablets and Windows 8 convertible devices.Rara.com Turns Up The Volume On Its Music Streaming: Launches Windows 8, iOS Apps; Inks Lenovo Deal; Now In 27 Markets
TechCrunch 23 October 2012

History

Located in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, rara was spun out of digital music service provider

Omnifone Omnifone was a UK-based company that was an independent provider of cloud-based unlimited music services to consumer electronics vendors, mobile carriers, Internet service providers and consumer brands including RIM, Sony, HP, and rara.com. ...

prior to launch in December 2011. The service was run by parent company rara Media Group Limited with its back end technology platform powered by Omnifone. The rara.com web streaming service and rara Android mobile app was launched on 13 December 2011 in 16 countries across the US, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, with 10 million tracks from all major labels and a global partnership with HP. On 14 December 2011 rara announced its launch in New Zealand. On 20 January 2012 rara announced its launch in Australia, Canada and Singapore. On 31 January 2012

PRS for Music PRS for Music Limited (formerly The MCPS-PRS Alliance Limited) is a British music copyright collective, made up of two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) and the Performing Right Society (PRS). It undertakes ...

announced a pan-European licensing deal securing royalties from rara for the songwriters, composers and music publishers it represented across Europe. On 18 July 2012, rara appointed

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlant ...

executive Nick Massey as CEO. On 23 October 2012 rara launched apps for iOS and Windows 8 devices and announced music licensing deals with independent distributors Merlin, The Orchard, INgrooves Fontana, Believe Digital, VidZone Digital Media and an expanded global licensed catalogue to 18 million tracks. rara.com also announced it had added 7 new countries; Brazil, Mexico, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Africa and Portugal, increasing rara.com's territory reach to 27 markets. On 20 December 2012 rara announced a licensing deal with independent distributor

IAS IAS may refer to: Science * Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, United States * Image Analysis & Stereology, the official journal of the International Society for Stereology & Image Analysis. * Iowa Archeological Society, Uni ...

and the addition of 6 new Eastern European countries;

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

, Lithuania, Latvia,

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

, expanding its international territory reach to 33 countries worldwide. On 8 March 2013 rara announced Omnifone and

executive Jez Bell as CEO. On 21 May 2013 rara announced an international partnership with BMW to provide Europe's first in-car music streaming service. On 11 October 2013 rara announced a partnership with

to pre-load the rara app on Toshiba Windows 8 PCs, tablets and convertible devices in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. On 6 December 2013 rara expanded Europe's first in-car music streaming service across the BMW range. rara was available in BMW Series 1-7, the M Series and the X5.
The Drum 6 December 2013 In early 2015, rara announced that the company was for sale and would shut down if a buyer was not found. Unlimited music streaming and premium shut down on 29 March in all 32 countries. In June to October, the official homepage still ran without the "sign up", "prices" or "social network" options. However, the page still had the "email" and "sign in" options. The website was finally shut down in November.

References