“It’s been a while since we’ve heard much about Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre’s Beats Music, but our music industry spies say Iovine is having fresh talks with artists about doing exclusives,” Claire Atkinson reports for The New York Post.
“Beats executives — now Apple employees — are looking to replicate the kind of success Beyoncé had with her iTunes album, ‘Beyoncé by Beyoncé,’ back in December 2013,” Atkinson reports. “Beats already has a bunch of connections with artists including Nicki Minaj, who frequently stars with Beats products in her music videos. Iovine is also good friends with Will.i.am, Pharrell, Kanye West and Gwen Stefani.”
“There’s still no time frame for Apple’s planned Beats Music makeover, which may include dumping the name,” Atkinson reports. “On the p.r. front, Beats Music has been pretty quiet since the $3 billion Apple take-over, which included Beats Electronics. There’s no standing still in the fast-moving streaming music wars, however, and Apple had better jump in big and soon. Another Super Bowl buy perhaps?”
Read more in the full article here.
That’s just wrong. Distributors shouldn’t be in the production business. Apple needs to focus on being the best distributor and not use “exclusives” to keep consumers in their circle. iTunes is not great: Outside of the Hollywood studio drivel the selection of independent and “foreign” movies is just simp-ly ridiculous. Apple should be making its distribution channel the go to place for releasing digital media—easy for producers to load and release and for consumers to find and discover. Exclusives are the realm of has beens.
IOS 9. Nuff said.