in the UK Orange, Universal Music and Channel 4 create Monkey

August 5, 2009 - Orange today unveils Orange Monkey, the first Pay As You Go package for the UK market that offers free music to customers when they top up their mobile. Orange, 4Music and Universal Music launch first Pay As You Go free music service. Working together, Universal Music, Channel 4 and Orange have developed an innovative pay as you go package that gives customers free and easy access to hundreds of thousands of songs (plus free texts) streamed through any mobile handset and online at www.orange.co.uk/monkey from 30th July.


Monkey lets people create, listen to and share playlists on the web and on any mobile
Customers will have access to hundreds of thousands of songs, free competitions, news, gossip and exclusive access to artists content
Monkey customers get access to the music service plus a minimum of 300 free texts each month when they top up

Aimed primarily at the youth market, Monkey has been created with 16-24 year olds in mind tapping into the elements of teen and ‘twenty somethings’ lifestyle choices. As well as free music, Monkey offers customers free texts, allows for playlists to be shared on social networks, and it delivers great offers from relevant brands direct to their mobile. The free music element of the package fulfils an untapped market that is looking for a low cost, easy access music service without users having to worry about download costs or the functionality of their handset. The dedicated Monkey website aims to create a community where customers can broadcast their individual playlists online and share them with their friends.
With Universal Music’s expertise, Orange has developed a streaming model which allows great interaction with mobile music. As well as giving Monkey customers access to its market-leading catalogue, Universal Music will provide exclusive music, pre-release tracks and other content to the Monkey website such as competitions, artist interviews and playlists – all of which will help to build the Monkey community.

As the most watched music channel in the UK, 4Music delivers targeted access to Monkey’s core demographic with over half of its adult viewers being aged 16 to 34 years. Using a combination of traditional advertising, integrated programming and market leading music editorial expertise, 4Music will promote the monkey service from early September across the Channel 4 portfolio. Online, www.4Music.com will promote the Monkey service and music offering, and the 4Music team will be the editorial voice of the official Monkey website which will carry news, artist features, playlists, exclusive content and competitions.

find out more
Monkey: the website
Orange UK portal