iTunes won't play .wma files as they are, but will convert .wma files to whichever format you've selected within your iTunes preferences.
In iTunes go Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Importing. There's a dropdown menu next to 'Import Using'...there you can choose which file type you want iTunes to convert the .wma files to.

If you want your songs in iTunes in .mp3 format, just download .mp3 files rather than .wma files
wma files aren't the most trustworthy anyway - check out this link:What you should know about WMA Files

The file will have lost some of it's data when it was originally converted to .wma format...if you convert that same file to .mp3 then it's going to lose more data during the conversion. So the quality of the file's going to be even more reduced.

hiya!
thanks so much for getting back to me. i tried that but what it is, i am downloading mp3 files, however the files already dowloaded on my itunes are wma, am i therefore better to download wma files from lm? i chnaged the prefrences but it did not seem to make any difference!! ahhhhhh

Are you sure that the files in your iTunes library are .wma?? Right click on a file name > get info. You'll see the file format there.

Which version of iTunes are you using (to find out, in iTunes click on 'help' > about iTunes - the version number will show)?

ATM I'm back with iTunes 6 but AFAIK iTunes 7 was the same (ie converting .wma to other formats when adding files to the library). I don't know about iTunes 8, haven't used it.

sorry some songs are aac? and it looks like some are wma (i think its the songs i have dowlaoded via a cd, so everytime i download songs from lw it converts all those songs, it a total mess and doing my head in! i am on version 7, should i downgrade?

Have you used iTunes 6 before & not had the same problem?? I honestly don't know how you have .wma files there, because the 'import using' thing that I mentioned before applies to what you rip as well!

Bear with me for a little while, while I change to iTunes 7 & then rip a CD & see whether I can get .wma as an option.

What OS are you using?

AAC's one of the iTunes supported formats but I'm stumped with the wma. As you can see, it's not even an option for me & AFAIK it never was.

Nope, there's no wma option in my iTunes 7 either (version 7.0.1.8).

Can you take a screenshot of your files showing wma as the format (blank out file names for copyright reasons)?

Are you sure that you're not confusing wma with wav as a format?

hi birdy!
i have been a complete idiot, i have just been transfering file to music folder and not the shared lw one (not i am not even brainy enough to descover this myself, my flatmate did) typical blonde!! ahahahaha

thanks so much though for trying to help though!!!!you have been great!