During yesterday, Jimmy Iovine, chief director of the Apple Music service, met with Music Business Worldwide to conduct a new interview, where all current topics have been covered, such as the free trial period of Spotify, exclusive offers with artists and production companies, and other cutting-edge topics in the music industry.
Iovine has not bit her tongue and has answered everything that has been asked, at a time when the music industry is in full digital transformation, with numerous issues of confrontation between stakeholders.
ionvine explained that the market should be more restrictive, as well as including a substantial improvement in payment services. Apparently, many artists no longer see the music industry as a source of income, and therefore focus more on promoting tours, concerts and merchandising:
“The fact is that 'free services' in the existing music industry is so good, technically speaking, and so ubiquitous, that it is stunting the growth of paid streaming. There are two things that have to happen: the word free has to go away, become more difficult to say or be restricted, and paid services have to improve a lot.«
«Today's musicians believe that there is very little money in the music business today. So many of them are aiming for their goal to be concert promotion and merchandising. "
"Necessary put everything in our power to improve the user experience of customers who are sustaining this industry. And also so that the musicians feel encouraged to do their work. "
When asked by how Apple is working to make Apple Music a differential service in the industry, Iovine explained that video is becoming a central part of the music experience, bringing added value to the music experience.
Jimmy assured that If Apple offered any free form of Apple Music, there would be at least 400 million users free. But that would not be beneficial to the industry.
«We believe that artists should be paid. That is why I am at Apple. And that's what Tim (Cook) and Eddy (Cue) think. It's what Steve (Jobs) thought. It's what Apple thinks. "
Iovine also spoke on the topic of exclusivities, something that Apple went through in the past, and that caused quite a stir at record labels. Iovine recognizes that video content is a much better way to grow in the long term:
“We used that strategy before. In fact, we still use it with an artist occasionally. The music ecosystem doesn't seem to like it. Now we are full of video content. We are putting a lot of money into it. "
Lastly, Jimmy talked about a failed meeting he had with Intel, shortly before finally landing at Apple:
I fell in love with Steve Jobs and Eddy Cue after that. Once, I went to meet someone at Intel, before getting to know the Apple ecosystem from the inside. And I explained to them the difficult situation of an engineer and young musician like me at that time (at the height of piracy and the erosion of the audio-music business because of it).
I told them: If we can work together, we can take advantage of their musical platform. And this can help the industry find its value, instead of so much free content.
The answer was: Although it is an interesting story, unfortunately not all industries are built to last forever. I ran out of there. It became clear that we were on different planets.
It was then that I met Steve and Jobs, and discovered that they thought like me. "
You can read the full interview here. Worth.
