Apple bets radio will give life to its streaming star

Apple signed a deal with digital radio platform TuneIn that will make the tech company’s curated radio stations available on a global network of home speakers and connected cars, according to a new Wall Street Journal report.

• Beginning yesterday, TuneIn’s ~75 million monthly active users could start…tuning in to Apple Music’s six radio stations.
• It marks the first time the stations have been available outside of the Apple Music app since being introduced in 2015.

“Friends, Americans, countrymen, lend me your ears”

The move is a push by Apple to extend the reach of its music service, which has fallen behind Spotify in recent years. Per the WSJ:

• Apple’s US market share of digital music subscribers fell from 30% to 25% between 2020 and the end of last year…
• …while Spotify’s share increased from 31% to 37% over the same period.

It could be hard for Apple to reverse-reverse! this slide. Music streaming services often struggle to differentiate themselves when each provides access to roughly the same catalog of music—unlike video streaming platforms, where unique content is the draw.

To this end, Spotify utilizes ad-supported plans and an emphasis on algorithmic music curation to sign up subscribers, while Apple relies on free trials and its radio stations to bait the metaphorical hook.

As Apple’s partnership with TuneIn aims to funnel more users to its music service…Spotify is working hard to keep users locked inside its ecosystem. The Swedish music streaming app this week started to roll out DMs to certain customers in select markets—a move that it hopes will result in more user time spent in-app, so that it can justify higher subscription prices and catch up to its ad sales targets.