Apple Music Dives Further into Concert Streaming With …

As music streaming apps struggle to differentiate themselves, Apple is making concert video a more central part of its strategy with tonight’s big Billie Eilish show at its headquarters Steve Jobs Theater. The Apple Music Awards concert will be streamed live and then on demand to Apple Music’s 60 million subscribers. Apple would like to do more of these concerts in the near future.

You can see the Apple Billie Eilish concert here

Beyond broadcasting concerts, Apple seeks to strengthen its perception as an ally for art and artists. Since Apple Music is only a small fraction of the iPhone maker’s massive revenue, it may seem overly corporate and capitalistic compared to music-only competitors like Spotify. that some see more aligned with the success of the musicians.

In order to increase its subscriber count among serious listeners and score points with creators, Apple Music cannot appear to be designed to sell more Apple hardware. So tonight Apple hopes to show its respect for artists by handing out its first ever Apple Music Awards. Billie Eilish has won Artist of the Year and Composer of the Year (with her brother Finneas), while Lizzo takes home Best Artist of the Year. Also, based on Apple Music streaming counts, Eilish’s’ When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? ” It has won Album of the Year, and Lil Was X’s ‘Old Town Road’ is Song of the Year.

The award statues themselves are specially crafted Apple artifacts, with overexcited design as seen in those WWDC videos of robots making gadgets. They start with a single 12-inch disk of nano-level flat silicon wafer, the same type used to power Apple iPhones. The copper layers are patterned with ultraviolet lithography to etch connections between the billions of transistors on the wafer. It is then cut into hundreds of individual chips and lined up over the months-long process to create a reflective trophy suspended between glass and anodized aluminum. In what is sure to become an eccentric collector’s item, each award is packed with its own special level of Apple spirit and mounting screws for a stylish installation.

The hope seems to be that both the winners and their fellow artists come away with the perception that Apple really cares about music. That, plus the scale of Apple Music, could help convince them to share more links to their songs on the streaming service and feature their profile there before their presence on competing listening apps.

On the concert front, Apple began holding its annual Apple Music Festival, formerly the iTunes Festival, in 2007. But after a 10th year in which Apple streamed shows by Britney Spears, Elton John, and Chance the Rapper, discontinued the event in 2017. Apple Music launched a dedicated music video tab last year, but has done so less recently with streaming concerts other than some events with Tyler, The Creator, and Shawn Mendes. These concert videos can be difficult to find within Apple Music.

However, this represents a great opportunity for Apple. In music streaming services, catalogs are becoming more uniform, everyone is copying custom playlists and discovery mechanisms, and many are embracing radio and podcasts. Meanwhile, paying for exclusive music or entire artists has gone out of style compared to a few years ago. Chunking the music catalog is hostile towards listeners, can be detrimental to artists who lose out on mass distribution, and can lead to backlash from artist fans who don’t want to pay for multiple redundant streaming services.

Streaming concert videos, which are generally unavailable beyond the shaky camera phone footage, feels additive to the music ecosystem. If the platforms are willing to pay to record and produce the videos, they can be powerful differentiators. And if the recorded shows look unique from typical tours, like on the tree-covered stage for the Billie Eilish show tonight at Apple headquarters, they keep fans glued to their screens. Viewing videos can lead users to develop a greater affinity for any company that broadcasts the shows compared to multitasking while simply listening to a generic application.

Apple is already ahead of competitors like Spotify who do very little on the concert video front. Streaming more shows like tonight’s could help you better rival YouTube Music, which integrates traditional music streaming with a wide range of rarities, music videos, and concerts broadcast like Coachella. Apple is also fortunate to have a global sales and office footprint that could help it launch and record more shows with fewer logistical headaches.

To date, Apple Music has relied on its pre-installs on the company’s phones, tablets and computers, in addition to its free trial system to fuel growth. But if it can spot holes in the industry’s content offering, tap into its pockets to invest in premium video, and show artists that it cares, Apple Music could build a separate brand with more street cred than Apple itself.