Apple plans to utilize iTunes Radio to stream, promote albums before release

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
Apple Senior Vice President Eddy Cue says that Cupertino will lean on the newly-launched iTunes Radio to enhance discoverability for albums that make their streaming debut on the iTunes Store.

MARTA AR repair app
Miley Cyrus's Bangerz is the latest album to makes its debut as a stream on iTunes.


Apple plans to leverage their new iTunes Radio service to make it easier for customers to discover streaming album debuts, iTunes boss Eddy Cue said to Entertainment Weekly on Monday. Cue was speaking to the magazine about the just-finished iTunes Festival in London.

Asked how much influence the success of streaming debuts had on iTunes Radio, he said: "We certainly knew we would leverage it for iTunes Radio but the primary key to iTunes Radio was to create it custom for you. When you?re talking premiering song, what we?re doing iTunes Festival-wise, we knew iTunes Radio was a perfect place for that so it?s perfect alignment."

Record labels are choosing to stream albums ahead of their official releases in part to combat leaks, but data shows that the streams also have significant impact on album pre-orders. One music industry insider told Billboard that albums "often see a two-times to five-times bump in pre-orders during these campaigns." Two of the biggest album debuts of the year, Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience and Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, were streamed on iTunes prior to their release.

For his part, Cue feels that iTunes Radio is a much more natural platform for the debuts than the iTunes Store.

"It?s a huge improvement to do it on iTunes Radio because you don?t go to a store a lot. Hopefully lots of people will be listening to iTunes Radio a lot; from a discovery perspective it?s significantly better," he said.

"I think when you go to a store and you go to the Justin Timberlake page and stream it from there, that?s great but that means you went to the store. iTunes Radio lets you discover it without you having to think about it."

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 15
    I like this. Apple please fix iTunes radio to recognize when I already have a song in my library. When I am using iTunes Match only without content on my local device, it does not recognize my purchases. Huge issue!
  • Reply 2 of 15
    I'm still waiting for a "release" date for iTunes Radio outside of the US.
  • Reply 3 of 15
    danielswdanielsw Posts: 906member
    I love iTunes radio. I find myself wanting to buy music I hear all the time whether it's old or new. I also like it because I hear stuff I wouldn't think of looking for in the first place.
  • Reply 4 of 15

    I'm a big fan of iTunes Radio. The discoverability is amazing and I hear many more tracks I actually like than Pandora had offered.

     

    I have the ability to "tune" the station I create not only by clicking "Play More Like This", but also by adding tracks, artists and albums to that station at any time to more finely tune it. Since I have iTunes Match, I hear no commercials.

     

    iCloud/iTunes Store synching to my Apple TV at home allows me to pick right up where I left off for with each station I created. When I'm on the subway I just switch to listening to podcasts of my own music library.

     

    A couple quibbles: oddly, there are 10 second promotional commercials for for certain artists when I'm streaming from my Mac. Also, sometimes on my iPhone, iTunes Radio disappears from the bottom menu tray. I read other complaints on the Apple support communities forum. A reset usually does the trick. 

  • Reply 5 of 15
    enzosenzos Posts: 344member
    > we would leverage it for iTunes Radio but the primary key to iTunes Radio was to create it custom for you. When you%u2019re talking premiering song, what we%u2019re doing iTunes Festival-wise, we knew iTunes Radio was a perfect place for that so it%u2019s perfect alignment <

    Your jargon is quaint, Mr Cue!
  • Reply 6 of 15
    2old4fun2old4fun Posts: 239member

    Or Appleinsider's ability to type is no better than mine.  And they do not use proofreaders.

  • Reply 7 of 15
    pmzpmz Posts: 3,433member
    Refining by song still doesn't seem logical to me. Unless that specific song will be played at some point, I don't see the benefit of choosing a song just to get songs "related" to that song, which is a quite a stretch.

    Artist to Artist is understandable for relevant association, but one song to another is tough, unless its literally a song from the same album.
  • Reply 8 of 15
    pinolopinolo Posts: 91member

    Promote the release in one country that is...

  • Reply 9 of 15
    robin huberrobin huber Posts: 3,949member
    Don't know why, but as I've aged I listen less and less to music. When I was young in the 60s and 70s it was an important part of my life. Now, though I still like current music and pay attention to it, I spend very little time actually listening to it. When my earbuds are in its usually for a podcast. Am I alone in this?

    I had been using Pandora only for background music when entertaining at home (AirPlay through AppleTV), but am shifting to iTunes Radio for that.
  • Reply 10 of 15

    I am not a huge radio person, but I did set this up on my Apple TV and actually purchased a song. 

     

    What I don't like is that it does not show up on my Purchased in iTunes, I have to physically search for the song to find it. 

  • Reply 11 of 15
    saareksaarek Posts: 1,520member
    Annoying that there is no update for the release schedule outside of America. Come on Apple get a move on already.
  • Reply 12 of 15
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    I'd like to see Apple work with artists / labels to create iBooks Author 'magazines' that were free to download that had interesting content that had live streaming links into iRadio for such marketing of new albums (or films but iRadio would not be required for that). It seems an obvious use of the two Apple technologies working in unison.
  • Reply 13 of 15
    wigbywigby Posts: 692member
    album pre-release streaming and itunes radio are a great match. the only time i've cared about itunes in the past few years has been when they streamed pre-release. i listened to the black sabbath and trent reznor albums over and over again. they didn't lead to a purchase directly but i am still thinking about them and that is more than i could ever say without having heard them early.
  • Reply 14 of 15
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TechProd1gy View Post



    I like this. Apple please fix iTunes radio to recognize when I already have a song in my library. When I am using iTunes Match only without content on my local device, it does not recognize my purchases. Huge issue!

     

    I agree.  I'm a massive fan of iTunes radio, and have bought loads more music in the last couple of weeks than I have in the last 12 months, but it did irk me when I realized I'd managed to buy a track I already owned!  Stupid mistake on my behalf, but it can't be that hard for Apple to not display the "purchase" link if I already have it on iTunes Match.

  • Reply 15 of 15
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TechProd1gy View Post



    I like this. Apple please fix iTunes radio to recognize when I already have a song in my library. When I am using iTunes Match only without content on my local device, it does not recognize my purchases. Huge issue!

     

    thats odd.

    I have itunes match and have used only iCloud option to listen to my music from my iphone for ages. when i use the radio option-all my owned/matched music shows as such. Instead of a $1.29 tag or whatever the songs cost is, the button instead is a "cloud with download arrow" showing that I already possess the particular song and i can download it.

Sign In or Register to comment.