“Apple isn’t just gunning for Spotify with its new Apple Music streaming service,” Stuart Dredge reports for The Guardian. “It’s gunning for radio broadcasters. Its combination of live radio station Beats 1 and a range of non-live stations programmed by DJs aims to seduce listeners away from traditional radio, and then sell some of them a $9.99-a-month streaming subscription.”
What I saw in the record industry is it’s just getting more restricted, more restricted, more restricted to where everyone’s trying to figure out what kind of song to make to get on the radio, that’s researched and where advertisers are telling you what to play. What’s happened to the music industry, from my perspective, is a lot of great music is behind the wall that can’t get through, and therefore a lot of artists are getting discouraged. And we hope that this ecosystem really helps revive that… There’s got to be a win for everybody: there has to be a win for the consumer, a win for the artist, a win for the rightsholders. We wanted to give artists a place where there’s a rhyme and a reason: where there’s an ecosystem where it feeds off each other. Where there’s a payoff! And not just a financial payoff, but an emotional payoff. A creative payoff. — Apple’s Jimmy Iovine
“Wouldn’t Apple have liked to go cheaper?” Dredge asks Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “‘No. We always thought ‘$9.99 is the price of an album,’ so on a monthly basis that’s great. Where we put all our energy behind was the family plan,’ says Cue, referring to the $14.99 option that covers up to six people in a family”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: People should forget about the somewhat muddled keynote presentation of Apple Music and focus on what Apple’s new service offers. All of the features that Apple Music offers makes membership quite compelling at $9.99/month. And hundreds of millions of users will be experiencing every bit of Apple Music for free for three months starting very soon. Apple’s revolutionary Apple Music is going to be a very big deal!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
SEE ALSO:
Shark Tank’s O’Leary: Apple Music is a ‘giant nothing burger’ – June 9, 2015
Something about Apple Music betraying Apple’s brilliance by ignoring ‘The Harry Potter Theory of Marketing’ or some such nonsense – June 9, 2015
Bob Lefsetz on Apple Music: What team is Jimmy Iovine on? – June 9, 2015
Apple Music’s huge advantage over Spotify – June 9, 2015
Apple Music is a major mess and it won’t beat Spotify or something – June 9, 2015
When Apple Music arrives, what happens to iTunes Match? – June 9, 2015
What Apple Music says about how Apple views musicians – June 8, 2015
Apple’s revolutionary Apple Music just might prove its skeptics wrong – June 8, 2015
Apple unveils revolutionary Apple Music service – June 8, 2015
I’ll use Apple Music. Whatever one might think of Jimmy Iovine, I believe it comes down to this: music, indeed all creative work, isn’t free, artists should be paid. I would rather pay out of my own pocket than have to put up with advertisers who try to figure out stuff about me to target me more precisely. My only concern, frankly, is: will the real human beings who are program the music be able to find the music I like?
They are more likely to find the music you like because, like you, they care about the music. The algorithmic engine, designed by impersonal geeks, cares not about the music but seeks to discover your essence the better to sell you.
Somehow everyone things that Apple Music presentation was messy, and I agree that it was not ideally polished at all, but I personally liked it, how raw it was. Especially Drake’s nervousness; it was is kind of endearing. You just can not hate the guy, you love him.
If we are truly concerned about ‘the artist getting paid’–we will eliminate the (middleman) record company parasites. Streaming services pay for the use of the artist’s works–it is the whore record co’s that (as usual) take the lion’s share of the revenue for themselves. Until and unless we (artists, apple etc) recognize the 1000lb elephant in the room, this will never get addressed properly.
Musician’s need to take-back their works and representation AND companies like Apple need to invest more in the facilitation of artist infrastructure–allowing a clear and simple path to creation, publishing and distribution of their works.
Meant to add this: AND receive their royalties and revenues within the digital ecosystem. This could happen if the Apple, Spotify, Pandora etc would provide this direct platform..until that time, we can’t bitch about the artists not getting paid for their streamed works because it’s the Rec Co’s that are sucking out the $$$..
Terrestrial radio for now, just wait until we colonize Mars.
If it’s really taking on YouTube and that type of content shines, it’ll be well worth the price, easily. But what about artists that don’t focus purely on music?
YouTube has a lot of music content, but it comes as a side-thought for YouTube. Apple Music can certainly take that on.
But what YouTube does best is it has a lot of normal people who quickly become successful video bloggers, talking about a wide variety of topics or even making their own fictional short films, etc. I hope Apple has something big coming for that community as well, because I know it would be done much better than YouTube.
Apple needs to retain focus and not challenge YouTube across its entire range of output.
Just because it has the money to try and muscle in on everything but that doesnt mean it should .
Its core business is making the platform and not making the content
Terrestrial radio? People still do this? Last I checked, radio was commercials and nonsense conversations punctuated by a song or two.
I hope Beats 1 is successful, but it might go over as well as the last media product Eddy launched, The Daily.
There are countries where commercial interests have not been allowed to wreck the listener’s enjoyment of radio stations and in those countries, people still enjoy listening to terrestrial radio.
America tolerates a level of intrusive advertising that would not be regarded as acceptable in many other countries. You can see countless examples in American radio, TV, print media and web sites. I’ve never understood why consumers accept such a state of affairs – maybe it’s all down to wanting something for free or for less than the market price, but you pay a heavy price by not enjoying those things in the way that others do.
Here in the Boston area, broadcast radio is leaps above any marketed/algorithmed/commercial/paid/sponsored internet bullshit. Stream WMBR.org for a spell and find out about real radio. Yes, living in this area I have absolutely _no_ need for a streaming service.
The latest Apple product: iOvine?
Lawsuits begin. NY attorney general already investigating Apple’s new music service.
I’ll try and probably switch over to Apple Music from my Spotify account.
But I do love Spotify. I hope Apple Music incorporates everyone of it’s features.
I also hope I can import my playlist from Spotify into Apple Music. I also hope that the people I subscribe to in Spotify create list I can subscribe to in Apple Music too.
Hello “Hrh Tyler Waltz” on Spotify, I am referring to you.
I really enjoy all of your list I follow over at Spotify. I hope you create list on Apple Music too that I can follow.
Meh I think Apple is a bit late to the streaming game. I’ve been happily using Spotify (premium paid version) for a few years now and not sure I’d see a reason to change. Would be a bit of a pain to recreate my playlist. Also I’m curious if you can use this on multiple devices at the same time. With Spotify the wife and I kick each other off if we both want to stream at same time which is a pain on occasion.
I sort of wonder if SiriusXM customers would be real conversion potential for this in the long run? I love Howard Stern but other than that the content on satellite seems pretty uninspired and crappy.
I’m sure it is going to be very good, certainly hope so but the presentation was just so boring and confusing I felt I was at a Windows presentation with a load of Dad dancers. Can only go on an upward curve. I just fear this is an area Cook simply doesn’t get and I’m not sure the man he has chosen to educate him is necessarily the right one. We shall see.