ROXi music-streaming service set to stir up a stagnant market

ROXi, a new music streamer launching in the first quarter of 2024, aims to blast the music-streaming industry out of its rut. Today, every major service—including Apple Music, Qobuz Spotify, and Tidal—offers a similar catalog and user interfaces that are more alike than different. That’s largely because each one offers a mobile-first experience that doesn’t translate well to other entertainment systems, such as big-screen televisions.

Unlike those services, ROXi is specifically designed to offer a superior playback experience on television screens. With more and more living rooms centered around soundbars and home theater systems, many users are ditching independent audio systems. ROXi will offer a freestanding app for streaming devices, and a breakthrough over-the-air, video-on-demand service in partnership with Sinclair Broadcasting.

ROXi will provide the same on-demand music playback the competition offers, but it will also include music videos for every song, interactive games, ROXi-designed music channels, and a karaoke feature.

This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best music-streaming services.

Founder Rob Lewis started ROXi in 2014 and spent nearly a decade polishing his concept and software before prepping its launch. His concept has attracted a string of celebrity backers, including Simon Cowell, Kylie Minogue, Sheryl Crow, and U2’s Adam Clayton.

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Thanks to all that preparation, ROXi will work with 90 percent of today’s smart TVs, including those from Comcast, Hisense, LG, Samsung, Sony Bravia, TCL, and Vizio; the Nvidia Shield TV set-top box; and almost every smart TV operating system: Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, and Google TV. Apple TV will be the only major player missing at launch.

There will be a “free forever,” ad-supported tier for casual viewers. Dubbed ROXi Standard, it will include unlimited music videos, exclusive music channels, and a selection of karaoke songs and music games.

ROXi Premium will cost $8.99 a month, $2 less than the other paid music services. There’s no advertising, and users can play anything from the catalog on demand. There are no limits on music channels, karaoke, or games. New users will be able try ROXi Premium free for 30-days.

ROXi is also offering its own Karaoke Mic for $29.99. At launch, anyone who signs up for a 30-day trial of ROXi Premium can get one free.

What makes ROXi different?

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When you play existing music-streaming services on a TV, you’ll see static images of album art on that giant screen. ROXi’s Lewis thought was a waste of visual real estate. ROXi will tap the existing catalog of music videos for songs that have them, and it will AI and a library of licensed photos—many from Getty Images—to generate “virtual videos” for the rest of the millions of songs on the service.

These virtual videos will combine images of the artist (when available) with images of the era the song was recorded along with pictures evoking the song’s genre. Classical music might feature images of concert halls or churches where it was originally performed. Beatles songs that don’t have videos will incorporate images of Swinging London to provide a visual backdrop for the song. If the videos work as described, ROXi will have vastly improved the tv music experience.

Many casual listeners use smart speakers like the Amazon Echo for their music, but it’s difficult to add songs to a queue that way. The speaker must pause playback so it can hear your voice command. ROXi takes advantage of the TV screen to add a visual interface to manage playlists.

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With compatible televisions, ROXi will allow a user to enter a room, say “Play Taylor Swift” or “Play Metallica,” and the system will turn on and music playback will start automatically. If you’re having a party, guests can add songs to the playlist via a QR code that will appear onscreen from time to time.

Karaoke might turn out to be ROXi’s killer feature. The app will display the song’s lyrics on the TV screen and route audio from the mic through your home theater’s audio system. There are also interactive games where viewers guess the artist from a few seconds of music playback.

Smart TV manufacturers seem to be committed to the platform, since most of them have never invested in their own music services. Evidence of that commitment comes from LG, Samsung and the U.K.’s Sky’s decisions to incorporate ROXi into their voice search platforms. At launch, ROXi’s catalogue of 100 million music videos will be available in LG TV’s content library, fully searchable via voice commands on the LG Magic Remote (televisions manufactured 2019 and later).

ROXi’s NextGen TV bet

ROXi has also announced a partnership with Sinclair Broadcasting, the local television giant that owns, operates, and/or provides services to 185 stations in 86 markets. The two companies aim to bring ROXi’s interactive app to broadcast television.

To pull this off, ROXi developed an innovative technology dubbed FastStream, which allows interactive TV channel experiences to be broadcast over the airwaves with the NextGen TV (ATSC 3.0) standard. ATSC 3.0 has so far struggled to make inroads in the broadcast market so far, but it promises 4K video over the air with a host of interactive features.

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ROXi could be one of the first companies to make a compelling case for those interactive features, with the ROXi Music Channel, ROXi Music Karaoke Channel, and ROXi Music Games Channel with Sinclair in the first quarter of 2024. The digital broadcast channels will operate on the secondary bands that Sinclair currently uses for its Charge!, TBD, and Comet networks.

Users will need a television that has an ATSC 3.0 tuner (or a set-top box with one, such as the recently released ZapperBox M1) and an internet connection for the tuner.

ROXi says its FastStream technology will make the entertainment experience seamless. The ATSC 3.0 tuner will ping the broadcast choice several times a second, but the actual content playback will happen over the internet connection. This technology will enable all the interactive features that users know from streaming apps—Skip, pause, fast-forward—and it will display a song’s lyrics instantaneously.

Both broadcasters and television manufacturers alike have been looking for the content that will drive viewers to upgrade to NextGen TV. ROXi’s free-to-watch broadcast channels could prove to be that compelling feature for music fans.