Here’s what next for Apple Music, according to Oliver Schusser and Zane Lowe.
Beats 1 went on air in 2015 and is accessible round the clock through iTunes and Apple Music. What Lowe has done with the platform is to essentially give musicians their own “clubs”, in the form of freeform radio shows. Four years in, the station has graduated to a full-on scene, first under the stewardship of producer and Beats Electronics co-founder Jimmy Iovine, and now under Oliver Schusser, the current head of Apple Music.
Apple doesn’t break out Beats 1 monthly listening figures; various commentators have speculated they are relatively low, the official line is “tens of millions”. What we do know is that one of Lowe’s priorities is to merge the two elements of Apple’s £9.99 a month Music offering: its Spotify-style streaming service and the Beats 1 radio shows.
“I want more people to listen and discover this stuff,” says Lowe. “And I want to integrate what we do at Beats 1 into Apple Music more thoroughly. I would guess there are still subscribers who don’t realise Elton John has done over 200 shows. Those shows are works of art in their own right.”
MacDailyNews Take: Beats 1 is one of the best things about Apple Music, even if Apple Music subscribers themselves sometimes forget it’s even there. Unique programming like the aforementioned Elton John’s Rocket Hour simply are not available anywhere else. Apple could and should do a much better job getting the word out about Apple Music’s Beats 1.