MUMBAI: United New Media Ventures Ltd (UNMVL), the digital media arm of UTV Software Communications Ltd, plans to invest Rs 1.2 billion over two years into areas of online properties and digital music.

This is the fifth vertical UTV has created, adding to the company's presence in the areas of TV production, broadcasting, movies and gaming.

UNMVL, which has taken a 76 per cent controlling stake in online technology company IT Nation, has tied up with music labels across the country, including Universal Music, Lehren from South, and Speed Records for digital music rights.UTV New Media has envisaged investment of around Rs 1.2 billion over the next two years into a combination of the internet space with a portfolio of 10 portals targeted at specific need gaps in the internet space. Also in the digital music space - with acquisition of over 20,000 music titles including Jodhaa Akbar and upcoming Akshay Kumar's Sinngh is King. Additionally, in the online technology space with IT Nation and in the online business space with UTVi.com the business website for the recently launched UTVi business channel.

Says UTV New Media CEO TN Prabhu, "Our objective is to create a digital entity covering the domains of business, finance, entertainment- TV, films, music, gadgets and technology. This we plan to do in a device agnostic manner. That is wherever the user has a device to access, we will have content to deliver"

Though they are fully live at this moment, he adds that to deply content of this scale will take a maximum of three months to be able to deploy it completely. They will soon be tying up with more music labels. A consumer will be able to have access to the product in whichever format he wants, says Prabhu. "We don't want to force a consumer to use any particular song the way we want them to," he adds.

In the Digital Music space, it launched with the blockbuster Jodhaa Akbar followed by Singh is King to be released in August 2008 worldwide. UTV New Media has launched with a catalogue of 20,000 tittles that include Bollywood and Regional (Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu movies) available under its short code 59995. The intention is to create digital assets such as images, music, ring tones and videos for these catalogues. Also in place are relationships and arrangements with 65 mobile operators across the world to distribute the mobile content.

UTV New Media's Internet space consists a portfolio of 10 websites across Business (with utvi), Technology (Channeltimes.com, CXOtoday.com, Enterpriser.in, Techtree.com) adding a unique synergy to UTV's existing web portfolio entertainment (with UTV Motion Pictures, Bindass, Bindass Movies, World Movies, UTV Movies the most powerful combo).