How can Apple Music emerge victorious in its bitter battle for subscribers with Spotify? A report in the Wall Street Journal last week suggested that the tech giant's musical arm plans to immerse itself in the world of original video content. Jimmy Iovine confirmed that Apple Music will expand its content offerings to include video while he spoke this weekend during the Television Critics Association press tour, the Hollywood Reporter reports.
“At Apple Music, what we’re trying to create is an entire cultural, pop cultural experience, and that happens to include audio and video,” he said. “If South Park walks into my office, I am not going to say you’re not musicians, you know? We’re going to do whatever hits popular culture smack on the nose. We’re going to try."
In short, Apple Music will go after Netflix, HBO, Hulu, and Amazon, all of whom have ratcheted up their original video content significantly in the past three years. Iovine emphasized that any sort of video content Apple Music produces will not necessarily be shoehorned into the current $10/month pay model.
“We’re fighting ‘free,'" he said. "So a simple utility where, ‘here’s all the songs, here’s all the music, give me $10 and we’re cool,’ is not going to scale."
Spotify has been partnering with companies like ESPN and MTV to produce video content for the past year. The Swedish company is nearing the 50 million subscriber threshold; Apple Music hit 20 million subscribers in December.