Mark Ramsey: What Apple Music’s Streaming Radio Station Really Means

Mark Ramsey Media

On his blog, consultant MARK RAMSEY writes, "In part one of the slicing of APPLE MUSIC, I looked at the all-you-can-eat streaming service itself. Today, in part two, I go inside the strategy behind APPLE MUSIC’s streaming radio station, BEATS 1. What is BEATS 1? It is 'APPLE’s first 24/7 worldwide radio station'.”

"Special? Innovative? No (and does ZANE really not have his own board op?)," asks RAMSEY. "That’s despite the hyperbolic and breathless reception this initiative is getting by some tech-heads who should know better. TAKE MACWORLD, for example:

'What’s really neat is that every user around the world will hear the same content at the same time, and [it takes] a much more curated approach to radio than iTUNES RADIO does.'

It’s almost as if APPLE invented radio, isn’t it? In fact, APPLE hasn’t even re-invented radio. The talent behind the mics comes from the land of terrestrial radio where, from what I can tell, they sat behind identical mics in nearly identical studios talking to the same music artists and infinitely larger audiences than the ones they will soon address. As for curation, this, too, is as old as radio itself. And it’s found everywhere online, including at APPLE MUSIC arch-rivals PANDORA, SPOTIFY, SLACKER and virtually all the others. In some cases, in fact, that curation comes from the best music experts any music fan knows – his or her own personal friends."

RAMSEY continues, "It seems to me that it’s rare for APPLE to spend so much time blowing hard about benefits which are little more than hot air, but you can almost feel that warm, breathy breeze blowing from Beats 1. The original iPhone was a model of innovation. But where’s the innovation in BEATS 1? So if it’s not an innovation per se, then why should APPLE do it at all?"

Read the full blog post here.

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