“Apple is watching its iTunes Radio streaming service flounder because it doesn’t understand the most fundamental truth about streaming music customers,” Jason Notte writes for TheStreet. “We’re not listening to streaming music services so we can find the next song to buy. We’re listening and subscribing to them so we don’t have to buy songs anymore.”
“This isn’t a Pandora issue or a digital radio issue: It’s a straight subscription streaming issue,” Notte writes. “It’s been a long time since the older segments of the music marketplace got their first iPods. It’s been more than a decade since iTunes started doling out downloads and just about as long since crafting playlists was something anyone but the most patient of party hosts or wedding planners took joy in doing. A device or iTunes library stocked with thousands of songs isn’t a point of pride anymore: It’s an onerous chore.”
“‘The a-la-carte consumption model is 11 years old and at this point the decline in the U.S. download sales seems unstoppable; it doesn’t seem like the store is refreshable,’ said one record label about the once-indispensable iTunes. And that’s how Apple, of the dancing iPod silhouettes and indie-rock jingles, got caught sleeping after the aughts ended,” Notte writes. “As great a force as Apple was in driving the last great music format change away from CDs and to lower-quality digital files, it now joins the labels in being dragged toward the subscription streaming future.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple might also try high-res track sales along with exploring subscription music and improving iTunes Radio.
It took me quite a while today to actually find Apple’s Streaming Music within iTunes. It doesn’t jump out at you. Once I did, I was less than impressed, and eventually went back to Pandora.
I agree. The Apple Radio app is completely underwhelming, if not disappointing in selection and depth. Not to mention relatively quick repetition within channels
I’m not crazy about the Pandora model but it does a better job than Apple, for sure. I’m fond of the TuneIn Radio app. Many genres and great depth within them. No repetition of songs.
Apple needs to get an idea how streaming music works. Quickly.
Took me a while to find it, but you can tune what types of songs are played into these three options: Hits, Variety, Discovery. That last one gives you songs from a much wider selection. And being a Music Match customer, I love that I never hear ads. I do wish they didn’t have such a small limit on how many songs I can skip…that’s ridiculous.
I went the Spotify route. $10/month and I can download songs and playlists so when I don’t have wifi, I don’t burn data. Really happy with Spotify over Pandora and iTunes Radio due to huge catalog and I want to be able to pick songs that I want to listen to…not what a radio station chooses for me.
Ditto.
When they released it, took me a while to find it too but then I learned it was unavailable because I was on Snow Leopard. What!!? That sucks.
Streaming music only works if you have unlimited data, wide coverage by 3G networks, and wide coverage by free wifi. Outside of major urban centres, none of those things exist, at least in the UK. Only one network offers unlimited data, and it’s coverage is spotty, to say the least, and the others give you 1Gb per month, unless you pay through the nose, then you get 2Gb.
And don’t get me started on free wifi, where you have to sign up and log in every time you want to use it.
If you can even find it. And then the network provider censors web access over the tiniest little thing.
I’m looking at you, O2, not allowing me to access bushcraft sites, because they sell knives, for fuck’s sake!
I don’t want streaming music, I want to own my music, so it’s available to me at all times.
Streaming is for people who view music as something to fill in the silence, not to enjoy for itself.
Knives? Really? That’s pretty lame.
O2, like most networks in the UK, have parental restrictions in place by default, hence the blocking of the knives. You need to call O2 to get the restrictions lifted.
“Streaming is for people who view music as something to fill in the silence, not to enjoy for itself.” Well said, Rorschach! I agree.
Yes. Exactly. Streaming music is just another form of radio. No company can stay in business streaming great music without commercials. They can never charge enough subscription fee without sticker shock keeping customers away, so commercials will be in the way of the listening experience or the company will be gone. And just like radio, the playlists will be controlled by a few medalist sales points, so you’ll hear the same crap on every station.
Pandora is almost good, it can figure outside stuff you like, but it eventually morphs into every other song being one you told it you liked, because it can’t find great music any easier than you or I can.
People haven’t stopped downloading as much because of streaming music, they’ve stopped because there isn’t much great music being put out in front of us. The record labels have been pushing the same stuff for more than a decade. They don’t have great A&R people any more, they won’t pay for them. They find acts that sound just like acts that already exist, have a pretty face, and can dance.
Great music is harder to find than ever. It’s clouded by great hoards of mediocrity being thrown in our faces as who is great. It’s a lot of hype and not a lot of talent.
Great talent is still out there, but they have little chance of becoming well known unless they’re dude a sound just like what the record companies have already exploited.
Put some great music out there to download, make it easy for people to find, and they will download it. A great product is a great product. There are great talents out there producing it, but the record companies, radio stations, streaming services, and pretty much the whole commercial side of the industry is and has been in a funk because of fear of trying anything different.
People who like to listen to great music download it to own it.
Unless they’re doing a sound (not dude a sound) haha
Well said. It ALWAYS amazes me how much people who know so little outside of their own experiences talk so much.
They’re called politicians!
Then Apple can create a service that allows the caching of streaming songs over WiFi to be played on your device later. That’s what Slacker Premium offers and it’s the main reason behind its superiority over Pandora.
Nobody wants to own any of this shitty music. Apple was caught flat footed by the transition to streaming music the same way they were out of touch with big screen phones. This is yet another area, along with Apple TV, where Tim Cook can actually be an improvement over Steve if he quits fscking around already.
I always thought I wanted to own my music. Then I had kids and did t listen to much over a few years, what with all the new busyness. When I went back to my collection I was like, “who was the human who bought all this stuff and how was that person ever me?” So yeah, now I’m thinking streaming maybe makes more sense.
If music is merely a casual pastime, then streaming may make sense. If, however, music is an integral part of one’s life, streaming is a second-best approach.
Yep. It’s a trend change. People want to control their own stuff and now know they can’t trust the cloud, if they ever thought they could. I want my stuff when I want it, not when the cellular or wifi networks say I can have it and then make me pay for it, again and again, in the sense of download data charges, every time I listen to it, watch it, or read it. Whatever! And I don’t want to Tweet about it or share it on Facebook, now or ever.
You sound old. Like real old.
“You sound old. Like real old.”
You make that sound like a bad thing.
We have been around long enough to know what works and what does not.
You will get there someday.
Isn’t it past your bed time, pops? What are you doing, staying up for that NCIS marathon on USA?
among other things, 4th degree black belt in tae kwon do with 18 years experience training law enforcement and military, and a sparring partner for an Olympic bronze medalist who is training for 2016 Olympics, wanna go for a 10 mile run tonight? in the dark? thats ok, you can go back to your video games, got no time for ya, things to do.
Might want to back off on the ‘roids there, Officer Fife. You’re making an ass of yourself trying to intimidate an anonymous poster on a web site.
Said by the fat slob sitting on his butt stuffing his face with who knows what. I imagine the most you ever lifted was a can of Dew and a bag of Cheetos, and the fastest you ever moved was trying to get to crapper before you pissed yourself.
Some Guy: I knew you were going to come back with something like that.
I wondered if you would bite.
You did.
Have a wonderful life.
You sound immature. Really immature.
So, how many live gigs d’you go to each year then, higo? If you can ever drag your sorry ass out of the basement and actually engage with other humans, that is.
I’ve been going to gigs and actually buying music, not renting it, for over forty years, and I’m still finding more quality stuff than I can possibly afford to buy, and going to see new artists, and not some one-hit loser from a reality pop show, either.
As it happens, I get all my new music information from one radio station, and a BBC one at that, called 6Music.
My Shazam app gets used at least eight or nine times a day, tagging stuff I’ve never heard before, music that often has yet to find a record label, it’s so new.
Streaming audio won’t give me that access to the really new.
Apple didn’t drive “the last great music format change away from CDs and to lower-quality digital files,” pirate websites did that. Apple just made it profitable. (and better quality than the garbage others like Sony was trying to push on people)
HORRIBLE ARTICLE. The streaming business model is NOT sustainable for the music industry because musicians NEED TO EAT, TOO. Watch the streaming industry crater when musicians pull their streams.
They can’t pull their streams. Music has compulsory licensing. As should video, books and other media.
I’m not sure I agree about other media, but you make a good point. How much do streaming services have to pay compared to radio?
That’s a good point. Nobody seems to care what the artist gets if anything… Is it worth it to record and publish music anymore? Seems like live performance is only way to make a living if paying gigs are available 😯
Quick answer here. People if you dont like whats playing change the channel. if your a cd user then do so, streamer then do so, why complain about something that you as an individual have no control over when it come to what others prefer. Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah
I haven’t listened to music on the radio since I was old enough to buy CDs, in the early 80’s. Why anyone would want a DJ, or worse, a computer, to pick the next song is a mystery to me. I mean, they have ads people! Who would choose that? The only subscription I would pay for would allow me to stream any track from iTunes, any time, so I will keep holding my breath until that comes, which will probably be never.
Streaming is here because the record companies want subscription, that is their end game.
See my comment above. Find BBC 6Music on the Internet, they have a listener base in virtually ever part of the world, especially North America, because, being the BBC they do not have commercial adverts, and their entire existence is devoted to playing quality music, much of it very new indeed.
Believe me, in the ten years it’s been operating, I’ve found more new music than in the previous twenty-five to thirty.
Give it a try, you might hear something you like.
Horrible iOS 7 interface makes it difficult to find music. End of story.
And the broken record drones on….
I’m not sure what this guy is talking about. I do listen to streaming radio/iTunes Radio to discover new music and then buy what I really like…
music is saturated.
FUD!
This is somewhat of a flawed article.
“The a-la-carte consumption model is 11 years old and at this point the decline in the U.S. download sales seems unstoppable”
Subscription based services have been around longer than 11 years (See Janus/Played-For-Sure/Napster/etc…).
While music downloads are down, it’s far too early to indicate that this is an overall trend, and more importantly, when you compare overall revenue, sales of music remains far> higher than streaming services.
I think it’s also misleading to rush to judge that streaming services aren’t used to discover new music. There’s a lot to be said in replacing conventional radio with streaming/subscription/smart radio services to find new music worth buying.
That said, it does seem, for better or for worse, a new generation of music listeners has come in that is more accepting of all the pitfalls of subscription services as generally disinterested in owning music, hence the increase in popularity of these services. However, the revenue just doesn’t compare, let alone the profits, to download sales.
iTunes Radio is not be a direct replacement for Pandora. It’s an enhancement to iTunes and provides a way to discover new music. I don’t listen to iTunes Radio all the time but have bought a number of songs and discovered more bands with it. With the iP5, I can buy songs with the fingerprint sensor which is way more convenient than having to enter a password everything.
The point is that for those who want to discover new music and are willing to pay for them, iTunes Radio is a good solution. Apple will end up making more money for themselves and the music industry than Pandora ever will.
For me as a casual listener, streaming and subscribing will never make sense. As a discovery mechanism free ad sponsored streaming makes sense for me.
Most of the music I buy I discover through TV shows.
Now movies I mostly rent. If they want me to subscribe to something do it with TV series I’ll never have the space to store.
“iTunes” is a severely diluted brand. “iRadio” should have been a separate brand and app. I’m starting to believe the reports of Apple being brain dead at the top.
By WWDC or Fall iPhone launch, Apple might do just that, if there is any ounce of truth to this rumor;
http://9to5mac.com/2014/03/12/ios-8-apple-considers-itunes-radio-changes-to-tackle-growing-spotify-pandora-competition/
Shovelling shit is all zombies are good for these days.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Rhapsody Music yet. I’ve been a subscriber of theirs since before they took over Yahoo Music Unlimited. They used to offer the option to purchase tracks which stopped a few years back. Now it is a flat monthly fee of $9.99 to stream as much as you want while allowing temporary downloads of as much music as you can store on your I-device for offline listening. The price has crept up to $14.99 per month , but even that price point for ten years, I think it’s well worth the $1,800 rental price to have an unlimited catalog of songs to choose from versus owning 1,800 tracks.
I listen to iRadio often even with commercials, I think it’s fine. I have several stations and they’re on “Discovery” mode. Why? Because it’s the simplest way to discover new artists. I’ve run across several artists that I’ve never heard of and bought albums of theirs.
I’ve had my iTunes library for over a decade now and I stopped buying music a while ago. Even with thousands and thousands of my own music, I sometimes like to listen to something different.
I never used Pandora or any other radio service other than Internet radio which always sucks. So the convenience of having iRadio in iTunes can’t be beat.
i don’t care what direction industry goes. the days of me spending money on music is over. these artists and execs always expect you to re-buy their music over & over again. if you disagree, the go buy led zeppelin newest reissue and continue to make these people rich
I won’t pay for streaming from any company. I have thousands of songs in my library, and that’s just the songs I know I like. I have it set up to take them off once I’ve listened to them recently and it would still take me a year listening a couple of hours a day to get through them. I buy the odd new song here and there, listen to radio, and podcasts, so I just have no need to pay money to buy music. Streaming’s main market could likely be for people without collections, who have not previously paid for music. I think there will be a dividing line in generational markets.
The problem is the latest releases are predominantly Crap.
The Crap is listened to for a week or two then quickly forgotten.
Streaming is ideal for the Crap releases. The more Crap, the more we will need streaming.
The Labels will get their streaming pie in the sky from their steaming pile of Crap.
All I want is 24/7 Disco to Boogie All Night Long. If iTunes Radio has that I’m IN!
Total rubbish:
“We’re not listening to streaming music services so we can find the next song to buy. We’re listening and subscribing to them so we don’t have to buy songs anymore.”
I DO look for new music to buy. However, iTunes Radio pretty much sucks and finding similar music to what I’ve chosen. I still find iTunes Radio instead shoves non sequitur music at me that I NEVER WANT TO HEAR AGAIN. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I choose ‘Hits’, ‘Variety’ or ‘Discovery’. Corporate approved crap gets shoved at me anyway. 😛 I thought Apple would work on iTunes Radio to ‘tune’ it up. Nope.
TYpo alert: “…sucks AT finding similar music…”
Dear Media Corporate Oligarchy: You STILL haven’t got a clue what you’re doing in the 21st Century. So bugger off and let the musicians wake you up and teach you about THE ART OF MUSIC. Take your biznizz of music and shove it back up your backside.
It is yet another example of Apple not providing what you want but what they think will make them money.
I’m going to go against the grain here, and say that almost all my music consumption comes from Rdio / iTunes Radio now. I still occasionally use Pandora, and have never liked Spotify.