Doug Morris, Scooter Braun, Daniel Ek, More on the Apple-Beats Deal
With news of Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics breaking today, Billboard reached out to prominent executives and thinkers from across the music industry to get their thoughts on the deal.
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Everyone’s vying to turn streaming into something that will be profitable, but for the winner, revenue may not come to a music service alone. Apple is fundamentally a lifestyle hardware company. Beats Electronics is a powerful lifestyle brand. The downturn in download sales means Apple has a brief window of opportunity to get into the streaming market with a service that can be easily integrated into their OS. It’s still a walled garden, but there may be more walls.
At the end of the day, it costs Apple relatively little to get in the game, because they have a lot of spare cash. What will be interesting to see is whether a successful, integrated hardware and streaming brand under the Apple umbrella will make any long-term difference in artist revenue.
Casey Rae, Interim Executive Director, Future of Music Coalition
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