AppleInsider Staff
According to a report on Tuesday, Apple's content licensing deals allow for up to five live format streaming radio stations, meaning the company could launch four more Beats 1 Radio-style offerings without renegotiating with labels.
Sources with knowledge of the licensing terms told The Verge that Apple is within its rights to launch four additional streaming music "radio stations" with live DJs without consulting content owners. While not clearly specified, the report seems to indicate all labels are on board for potential expansion as part of conditions bundled with Apple Music contracts, meaning Apple could theoretically field genre-based stations, holiday-themed offerings, local stations and more.
Apple has yet to announce future Beats 1 Radio additions, but a series of international Web domain registrations discovered by MacRumors point to upcoming offerings ranging from Beats 2 through Beats 5. Apple supposedly owns beats2.hk, beats2.com.ru and beats2.com.cn, for example, a pattern that continues through beats5.hk, beats5.com.ru and beats5.com.cn. It is possible that the company has no current plans to launch more Beats stations and is only protecting top level domains from squatters.
Beats 1 Radio launched alongside Apple Music as a 24-hour station hosted by DJs Zane Lowe in Los Angeles, Julie Adenuga in London and Ebro Darden in New York. Live shows run for 12 hours, while remaining time slots have so far been filled by reruns of special celebrity shows from the likes of Pharrell Williams, Elton John, Dr. Dre and more.
Today's report also quoted sources as saying labels are "pretty pleased" with Apple Music's performance thus far, but are looking to October when Apple's free three-month trial period expires. Until free-to-stream accounts are converted to paying subscriptions, an accurate barometer of customer demand cannot be determined.
Chip Loder
Christine McKee
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William Gallagher
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8 Comments
I’m having a great time with Apple Music exploring new music in the classical genre, adding albums to My Music. For me it’s working quite well with no real issues. It just took a while to figure out how it works. My original library is fine and I was/am an iTunes Match subscriber to begin with. My original library status is normal with ‘uploaded’ and ‘matched' and 'purchased' tracks living peacefully together. The only issue I had was with a very few album artwork mismatches that I corrected without much effort. My decision has been made. I’m staying and will become a paying customer. No doubt about it. This is what I’ve been waiting for. I will still be buying CDs for ripping because the classical genre is sometimes hard to find, especially with old, out of print recordings. Vinyl -> Digital is also on the menu too.
I love Apple music and will be staying with it and do like Beats 1 but I wish they had country music in the mix being a mix of older and newer or stations dedicated to each.
like the BBC... I too am in love with AppleMusic & will be a longterm customer. Though I have a large CD and vinyl collection, $15/month saves me money by allowing me to listen before I make bad purchases.
Saw this coming on day one (assuming Beats 1 was a success)...
...but on the other hand don't see this post drawing a ton of comments after being up for awhile.... ....so does that imply a possible lack of a huge demand....??
Meanwhile, I listened to the B1 for a few days and felt I dug it well enough, but haven't found myself going back - and I haven't been moved to even get a free AM trial sub.
There's so (so) much out there now, i.e., I'm happy with all my uploaded music (about 15K songs) supplemented by free "radio" streams on iTunes (both the old internet streams and the new build your own variety) and now the new Google Play thematic streams....
....plus I get more free algorithmic streams (with plenty of artist and song discovery on all of the above and below), plus human curated streams plus actual radio stations on I?Radio (and more world-wide terrestrial radio on Tunein)... ...along with using YouTube autoplay, watching news clip videos on apps like Haystack (which also has late night show clips, tech and science clips and movie trailers)....
....NTM lots of podcasts, and if I had time, audio books.... ...and I have free Spotify and Pandora subs as well, but can only focus on so many.
....so AM's another of "the $ death of a thousand discrete monthly service bills" I'll forego, thanks but no thanks...
PS: I uploaded my music to Google Play for free and didn't go through the agita many iTunes Match customers have had to deal with - there's never been hiccup one in a few years now (and I could give a shit if Google knows what kind of music I collect - hit with your best "targeted" marketing shot, fellas)
....plus I'm about to get an included sub to Rhapsody when I switch to T-Mob's Unlimited plan in the next few weeks anyway....
So I never told the tech world to give me more free music and related media options here, there and everywhere than anyone could ever hope to consume, they just did it...
...and Apple Music certainly bodes to be one of the relative successes in this strange new music market... ...tho' I do hope things work out for the artists as I'm listening as much as I have in a long time and the only money I've spent has been on a few concerts and bar cover charges....
Even though Beats1 is predominantly hop hop/rap It is compelling live radio. what Apple should do with their extra licenses is create alternative genre radio stations, just do it and the audience will come...