Jimmy Iovine spent excessively as Apple Music head, current service growth slowing, report...
A profile of Apple Music chief Oliver Schusser includes claims that his predecessor, Jimmy Iovine, spent "excessive amounts of money," and adds that while the service is still growing faster than Spotify, that pace has slowed.
The Apple-funded video for Drake's "Hotline Bling."
Multiple people within Apple Music thought Iovine was spending too much cash on exclusives, music videos and documentaries, according to Billboard sources. Before his 2018 departure a "rift" reportedly arose between "Apple traditionalists" and Iovine's followers, a situation that is only now resolving itself under Schusser's leadership.
Under Iovine the company was aggressive about securing exclusives from artists like Drake, Taylor Swift and Chance the Rapper, and funding music videos like Drake's "Hotline Bling." Many of the documentaries on Apple Music are effectively native advertising, but have also included less biased titles like "808" or "Bang! The Bert Berns Story."
Schusser is reportedly responsible for some of the major shifts in Apple Music since summer 2018, such as ending Connect, breaking out of a yearly app update cycle, launching Top 100 charts and adding more personalized playlists. He was also behind the push to add support for Alexa devices, and urging Verizon to offer the service free with some unlimited plans.
On the service's growth, Billboard said that "its momentum has slowed somewhat," even if it's still accelerating quicker than Spotify both in the U.S. and abroad, as well as dominating the market in the U.S. and Japan. The magazine cited "sources with knowledge of both companies" without offering precise figures.
Globally, Apple Music has topped 60 million paid subscribers, although that's well behind Spotify's 100 million, and the latter company has even more people listening on its free ad-based tier.
"We just want to be the best; that doesn't have to be the biggest," Schusser said in response.
The executive also defended Apple's mix of curation and algorithms for playlists, arguing that the company has "a responsibility to our subscribers and our customers to have people recommend what a playlist should look like and who the future superstars are." Spotify puts a stronger emphasis on algorithms, which can deliver fresh content faster, for instance through its personalized "Made for You" and "Release Radar" lists.
Apple is "actively looking" at increasing the use of personalized playlists, Schusser said.
The Apple-funded video for Drake's "Hotline Bling."Multiple people within Apple Music thought Iovine was spending too much cash on exclusives, music videos and documentaries, according to Billboard sources. Before his 2018 departure a "rift" reportedly arose between "Apple traditionalists" and Iovine's followers, a situation that is only now resolving itself under Schusser's leadership.
Under Iovine the company was aggressive about securing exclusives from artists like Drake, Taylor Swift and Chance the Rapper, and funding music videos like Drake's "Hotline Bling." Many of the documentaries on Apple Music are effectively native advertising, but have also included less biased titles like "808" or "Bang! The Bert Berns Story."
Schusser is reportedly responsible for some of the major shifts in Apple Music since summer 2018, such as ending Connect, breaking out of a yearly app update cycle, launching Top 100 charts and adding more personalized playlists. He was also behind the push to add support for Alexa devices, and urging Verizon to offer the service free with some unlimited plans.
On the service's growth, Billboard said that "its momentum has slowed somewhat," even if it's still accelerating quicker than Spotify both in the U.S. and abroad, as well as dominating the market in the U.S. and Japan. The magazine cited "sources with knowledge of both companies" without offering precise figures.
Globally, Apple Music has topped 60 million paid subscribers, although that's well behind Spotify's 100 million, and the latter company has even more people listening on its free ad-based tier.
"We just want to be the best; that doesn't have to be the biggest," Schusser said in response.
The executive also defended Apple's mix of curation and algorithms for playlists, arguing that the company has "a responsibility to our subscribers and our customers to have people recommend what a playlist should look like and who the future superstars are." Spotify puts a stronger emphasis on algorithms, which can deliver fresh content faster, for instance through its personalized "Made for You" and "Release Radar" lists.
Apple is "actively looking" at increasing the use of personalized playlists, Schusser said.
Comments
I think his money was well spent and now I understand why Apple Music has had less buzz and excitement lately.
The services are largely interchangeable, the best GUI and value for money will win.
Everyone connected to Beats is a scumbag and Apple should also drop the whole “by Dre” thing... And get some real audio engineers in that company. I just leased a new car with Beats built-in audio system and it sounds like shit. My previous car had built-in Fender audio and it was tremendous.
I find Spotify easier to use, but I have gone with Apple Music for the integration across devices across the family.
My main complaint with Apple Music is its algorithm isn't anywhere near as good as Spotify's imo. When Siri is shuffling with music that I'll apparently like, there're two problems: one being a lack of new music, second is when it does insert new music it isn't remotely similar to music already in my library. More often than not it ends up with "Hey Siri, skip this". The "new music mix" is generally terrible and weighted toward pop crap which I don't like, and have none of in my library. It knows I don't like pop/hip hop, I've told it enough times, and yet it still pushes it over and over. Friends who have had both Spotify and Apple music seem to prefer Spotify's algorithm, which may be part of the reason people aren't taking up Apple Music quite as they were.
The curated playlists on Apple music are great, but again they're weighted strongly toward hip-hop, R&B and pop stuff and even the slightly less popular genres have a very limited number of curated playlists to choose from. For example, the "throwback" section of Apple Music has 21 playlists, 12 of those are "pop."
Not sure Iovine has had much to do with the highly computer sciencey art of algorithm writing, and there doesn't seem to be that much to show for the money he's apparently spent.
What makes you think Ive had anything at all to do with the design of the Music app, much less "interface restrictions"?
And one more thing, all the comments above regarding what Music is in need of are spot on, I don't understand why Apple who always spouted about music being in it's "DNA" allows for such an anemic experience.
I don't personally find Spotify's lists flawless, but they are far better than Apple's.
Not an "artist" among them. Performers yes, artists hardly.
As to Jimmy Bovine (spelling intentional), have him pick up a guitar or sit at a piano and show us his chops. He was and is a hanger-on.
What a waste of money.