What you need to know
- Rachel Newman, Apple's Global head of editorial and content, sat down with Variety today.
- The executive talked about Apple Music TV, the company's new music video streaming channel.
- It will stream music videos, concerts, interviews, and more 24/7.
Earlier today, Apple launched Apple Music TV, a 24-hour streaming channel fully devoted to music videos and artists. To further detail the new service, Rachel Newman, Apple's Global head of editorial and content, sat down to talk with Variety in a new interview.
When asked about what the service will generally look like, Newman says that it will truly be based around pop hits.
"It's really contemporary, well-known hits, so if we have a sample representation of artists, it would be Drake, Dua Lipa, Cardi, B, BTS, Justin Bieber and Billie Eilish. Generally it's very intentionally music videos interspersed with short-form video interstitial content, along with the odd long-form piece when it's around special events, like the all-day Bruce takeover."
When asked about special events, like the upcoming Bruce Springsteen takeover of Apple Music TV, Newman said that they will occasionally take over the service with interviews, archival footage, and live fan events where viewers can interact with the artists.
"Occasionally there will be special events. This is to celebrate the release of the documentary which is on Apple TV Plus and album release, so there will be some retrospective concert footage with music videos and Zane's 60-minute sit-down interview with Bruce. That all leads into a fan-only event broadcast that will be broadcast on Apple Music as well as the music video channel — at (11 p.m. ET), just ahead of the album being launched, there's a live event for a thousand superfans who are part of a closed-off virtual environment where they can communicate with Bruce and ask questions; Zane Lowe presents this and they talk about the album and play back it back. We're with the artist as the album is released, so that's quite special."
Newman had mentioned that the channel would also include "interstitial" content as well. When asked about this, the executive said that it will be bringing some of the live interviews they have done, and will do, with artists as they relate to the songs featured on the music video channel.
"We've produced a ton of content out of our live radio stations — Apple Music 1, Hits and Country — and while a lot of that content is radio, we produce video content in support of those efforts, so we will be using the TV channel to highlight some of those fantastic interviews with all of our hosts. So it will be a combination of interviews in full playing out between songs and also shorter-form pieces, like Katy Perry talking about her new track and things like that, taking pieces of content from previous interviews and then buttoning them up next to the appropriate song."
Variety compared Apple's new service to the old-school MTV that many of us enjoyed years ago, and Newman essentially agreed with that, saying that it's a great way to "set and forget" your music.
"I think the purpose of this is really to create another space for consumers to enjoy music. We want to serve all kinds of music lovers, and often even lean-forward music fans want a lean-back solution that they can set and forget. We just think it's an awesome way to experience music."
Perhaps the best part of all, Apple Music TV will have no ads, whatsoever.
