Music Unlimited was launched in 2005 and, until present, failed to match the expectations in terms of growth. As Yahoo’s program was changed to focusing on the consolidation of some its most promising operations, it was only a matter of time before the music project was terminated.

“Relatively speaking, a small percentage of those use Yahoo! Music Unlimited, yet an large portion of our resources were being poured into this service. It was clear to us that we needed to make a major strategic shift,” wrote Ian Rogers, general manager of Yahoo Music, in a company blog.

“As a result, we’re pleased to announce Rhapsody as our exclusive partner for on-demand music. Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscribers will have a chance to easily take their music catalogs and migrate to Rhapsody. Later this year we will be integrating Rhapsody into music.yahoo.com, so you can continue to use Yahoo! Music for music discovery, news, videos, lyrics, radio, concerts, blogs, and more”

According to Rogers, the company intends to focus more on Launchcast radio, music video and music.yahoo.com services. Also, he announced the acquisition of FoxyTunes toolbar, a plug-in working both for Firefox and Internet Explorer.