TLDR: An interview with Apple Music’s triumvirate (Jimmy Iovine, Zane Lowe, and Larry Jackson)
By Billboard
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“ a 17 percent revenue jump for the U.S. recorded-music business in the first half of 2017 [yoy] … predicting that subscription streaming would drive the global record business to nearly triple to $41 billion by 2030.
“ Zane Lowe, now creative director and L.A. anchor for Apple Music’s free radio service Beats 1, and Apple Music head of content Larry Jackson
“ Jimmy Iovine, who runs Apple Music — originally Beats, the music service and electronics business that he and co-founder Dr. Dre sold to Apple for $3 billion in 2014 — is on a tear about the deficiencies of streaming services, including his own.
“ Apple, which has about 800 million iTunes customers around the world, has more levers to pull:
- The company recently started promoting Apple Music subscriptions more heavily through ads … and on its iTunes Store …
- It has been spending seven-figure sums to secure exclusive rights to more than a dozen documentaries on artists … some of which have garnered more than 500,000 first-week views …
- Iovine, Lowe and Jackson are hoping to funnel more paying fans in through Beats 1, a live feed that’s free because it doesn’t offer songs on demand.
- The trio is also hoping for changes to the way Billboard calculates its charts — where a free stream on YouTube counts equally to a paid stream on Apple Music — which could incentivize artists and labels to promote their music on higher-paying platforms, rather than racking up free streams to win the №1 slot.
“ Jimmy Iovine: There has to be much more engagement between the artists and the audience. We have big plans and a long way to go.
“ Zane Lowe: We need to put context and stories around music. The song itself is obviouslythe primary passion point — it’s a key that opens the door. But what’s inside the room that is going to make a fan a super fan?
“ Lowe: Everyone in the U.K. knew Sampha was a complete angel — we were just waiting for the record. He was just taking his time. This leads into the idea of creating context around the artist [with inside stories]. I love making playlists, and I use a lot of playlists. But it’s a bucket. Artists don’t think like that. Artists think, “It took me years to make this record” [and that blood and sweat is a story fans want to engage with a la insiders] … [Drake] walks the line between giving us as fans a sense of ownership, but equally, he owns the story, controls the story so beautifully
#narratives
“ Iovine: An artist will come into my office and say, “They have 500 million people on YouTube. [YouTube now counts more than 1 billion users.] I don’t want to have to give my music away, but I have to promote myself. [A YouTube stream] counts the same as your paid stream. And Spotify’s.” That’s disincentivizing for the musician.
“ Jackson: We said, “Hey, we’re building this completely new ecosystem where it’s not going to be free. It’s behind a paywall. And we promote it.”
“ Iovine:I think [Spotify CEO] Daniel [Ek] is a talented guy and smart as all hell, but the margins are too tight. The costs are extraordinary. It’s going to get bigger and bigger and bigger, and the costs are going to get higher, not lower.
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