It wasn’t a mystery. But just in case you were still wondering: Yes, Apple will announce its new streaming music service tomorrow.
Sony Music CEO Pre-Announces Apple’s Streaming Music Service: ‘It’s Happening Tomorrow.’
“It’s the beginning of an amazing moment for our industry.”
Asa Mathat
Peter Kafka covered media and technology, and their intersection, at Vox. Many of his stories can be found in his Kafka on Media newsletter, and he also hosts the Recode Media podcast.
That’s according to Sony Music CEO Doug Morris, who confirmed the launch during an interview at a music industry conference in Cannes, France. “It’s happening tomorrow,” Morris said onstage, according to a report on VentureBeat.
Morris didn’t comment on the service’s much-discussed feature set — here’s Re/code‘s summary of the service, which has been spearheaded by former music label head Jimmy Iovine (pictured above) and will focus on paid subscriptions but will include free sampling — but talked about Sony’s rationale for joining up:
“What does Apple bring to this? Well, they’ve got $178 billion dollars in the bank. And they have 800 million credit cards in iTunes. Spotify has never really advertised because it’s never been profitable. My guess is that Apple will promote this like crazy and I think that will have a halo effect on the streaming business.
“A rising tide will lift all boats,” he added. “It’s the beginning of an amazing moment for our industry.”
As of Friday, Sony along with Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group, the two other major music labels, had yet to sign new licensing deals with Apple. But industry sources said they expected Apple to announce the service on Monday, at its Worldwide Developers Conference, even if the company didn’t have finalized deals in hand.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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