Tuesday, social networking website MySpace announced that former MTV executive Courtney Holt would be named president for MySpace Music, after rumors about Holt coming to work for the News Corp-owned website had been circulating for weeks.

MySpace Music is a joint venture between MySpace and major record companies Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music, Warner Music Group and EMI Music.

Holt is scheduled to begin on January 5, 2009 and he will from then on work with MySpace co-founder and Chief Executive Chris DeWolfe, taking charge of supervising the development and progress of the MySpace Music brand and of its operations throughout the world.

Courtney Holt has previously served as executive vice president of digital music for MTV Networks Music and Logo Group, while before that, he was senior vice president of new media at Interscope Geffen A&M, a record label owned by Universal Music Group and The Island Def Jam Music Group.

MySpace launched MySpace Music back in September and the brand has ever since released album previews and exclusive interviews with various artists, in an attempt to shift their main revenue source- advertising-into high gear.

For the future, MySpace Music is planning to begin selling concert tickets and artist items such as T-shirts, in order to bring in profit from other sources, since the online advertising business is slowly weakening by virtue of the global economic crisis.

Social networking website MySpace was purchased by News Corp in 2005 for $588 and it rapidly became one of the most popular sites of its like, while in June 2006, MySpace was ranked highest in terms of popularity in the United States.