On Tuesday, Viacom Inc.’s MTV Networks and digital media company RealNetworks announced that they will join together to compete with Apple’s domination with the iTunes store, iPod player, and iPhone.

RealNetworks Inc. Rhapsody and MTV’s Urge music services will merge and will be offered and accessible on computers, music players, and integrated with Verizon Wireless’s VCast multimedia service for cell phones.

The new company will be called Rhapsody America and MTV will start marketing this service heavily starting in September. Though both companies haven’t released the monthly subscription price, Rhapsody currently charges $12.99 for unlimited listening and $0.99 for individual tracks.

We will see how well Rhapsody America competes against Apple Inc. As of today, no other company has come close in rivaling Apple Inc’s. music store and player. Microsoft Corp. had worked with MTV to build Urge into its Windows Media Player software, but after it launched the software maker had shifted his focus on the Zune music player and store. But, the Zune hasn’t done that well against Apple’s empire and has only captured a tiny portion of the digital music market.

[via MSNBC]

Tags: Business, Apple Inc, Viacom, RealNetworks, Digital Music Store, urge, Rhapsody

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