In 2015, Zane Lowe left his job as a DJ on the venerable BBC Radio 1 within the UK to turn into the lead voice of a brand new digital radio station on the music streaming service launched that yr by Apple. Among its duties: a one-hour present broadcast dwell from Los Angeles each weekday beginning at 9 a.m. Pacific time.
A decade later, Lowe is a fixture in pop music world wide: a relentlessly optimistic tastemaker turned cheerleader, whose touching interviews with the charts’ greatest names entice hundreds of thousands of viewers on Apple Music and YouTube. Which means he may in all probability transfer his present to a extra handy time if he needed to.
“What’s extra snug than 9 within the morning?” asks Lowe, who nonetheless will get up Monday by way of Friday and heads to Apple’s Culver City studios to spin data and chat with pop stars on the platform’s flagship Apple Music 1 station. “I can not sleep previous 6 anyway, man. I rise up, do some boxing and I’m fucking prepared. Give me a espresso, take me on the air, I’m excited.
Even – or particularly – in an age of on-demand leisure, Lowe, 51, is optimistic concerning the promise of dwell radio. “The music appears totally different to me in that room than wherever else,” he says of his seat behind the console. “I like the thought of with the ability to alter the vitality of no matter is occurring in folks’s lives in numerous time zones with only one track.”
Apple shares his enthusiasm. Last month the tech big expanded its radio providing – along with Apple Music 1, it already had Apple Music Hits and Apple Music Country – with three new stations: Apple Música Uno, a Latin music channel; the dance-focused Apple Music Club; and Apple Music Chill, which the corporate calls “an escape, a refuge, a sanctuary in sound” and which options contributions from ambient music pioneer Brian Eno. Each operates 24 hours a day with programming hosted by a mixture of veteran radio personalities and musicians like Becky G and Stephan Moccio.
“The purpose we began the radio is as a result of we need to be a spot the place tradition develops, the place events begin, the place artists come and have a protected area to speak about why they made sure music,” says Oliver Schusser, vp of Apple. of music and sport. “And that’s extra vital at present than it has ever been.”
Cupertino-based Apple, whose music streaming service has 93 million subscribers, in line with Business of Apps, doesn’t say how many individuals take heed to its radio stations. “We’re not a numbers-driven firm,” says Schusser, one of many advantages of being a part of an organization generally described as essentially the most beneficial on this planet.
Yet Tatiana Cirisano, music trade analyst at Midia Research, says Apple Music’s funding in radio “is not simply an experiment they will throw cash at as a result of they’re Apple.” At a time when the expansion of digital streaming has slowed, the stations are a approach for Apple Music to tell apart itself from rivals like Spotify – the undisputed trade chief with 640 million customers – and Amazon Music. (Unlike Apple, Spotify presents a free, ad-supported plan.)
“If you concentrate on the final decade of streaming, it was characterised by a complete lack of differentiation, the place all these platforms had the identical interface and the identical catalog,” Cirisano says of the format that now accounts for 84% of the corporate’s revenues. recorded music. “But that is now not sufficient to compete as a result of we’re operating out of potential new subscribers.” To entice clients, Spotify has gone massive with podcasts and audiobooks. Live radio, Cirisano says, “provides a bit of shortage to the market. And dwell leisure experiences” – consider the splashy offers Netflix just lately struck with the NFL and WWE – “are kind of the final word uncommon leisure expertise now that all the things is out there on demand.”
Natalie Eshaya, who oversees Apple Music Radio, says the brand new stations replicate the platform’s broader dedication to bringing “a human contact” to the streaming ecosystem. It’s a shot that appears supposed to attract a distinction with Spotify, which launched an AI-controlled DJ-like function in 2023 and which attracted consideration final month widespread criticism for incorporating AI into its common year-end Wrapped promotion. At Apple, Eshaya says, “We select the music and curate the programming—that is been the ethical compass since day one.”
Ebro Darden, proper, talks with Jennifer Lopez on Apple Music 1 in New York in 2024.
(Tomas Herold/Getty Images for Apple Music)
In addition to Lowe, Apple Music Radio options broadcast professionals akin to Ebro Darden, who additionally hosts a morning present on New York’s Hot 97; Nadeska Alexis, born by way of MTV and Complex; and Evelyn Sicairos, previously of Univision. (Before becoming a member of Apple in 2015, Eshaya labored as a producer on Ryan Seacrest’s morning present on KIIS-FM in Los Angeles.) But Lowe, who additionally holds the title of worldwide artistic director — and who just lately took over from James Corden as host of a particular vacation version of “Sharing karaoke” — is clearly the guiding character of Apple Music.
Born and raised in New Zealand, he made music himself earlier than turning to radio and believes it’s his creative temperament that enables him to come back into shut contact with stars akin to Adele, Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga and Bad Bunny. “I converse the language of the artist,” Lowe says in his workplace in Culver City. “I feel most artists would in all probability say, ‘Yeah, he bought it.’ Curled up on a sofa wedged within the nook of the dimly lit room, he is wearing his standard saggy denims and sweater and dons a pair of trendy geometric glasses. “And I like working in an organization that prizes that,” he provides.
What Lowe sees as his empathy with musicians — “The belief artists have in him is nearly iconic,” Eshaya says — is seen by some as a stage of deference in his interviews that may border on obsequiousness. “I’m conscious that some folks assume I’m overly constructive or not vital sufficient,” he says. “But I simply do not assume it is my job. There are some issues that artists might take into account delicate — it could be private, it could be a tragedy of their life, it could be one thing they are not keen to speak about — and I do not essentially really feel like I’ve a duty to get them. data or who’ve an obligation to supply it to me.”
Do you take into account your self a journalist?
“No, I do not truly know,” Lowe says. “I’ve the chance to spend an hour with a tremendous artist and I actually need it to be the best human expertise I can have.” When Katy Perry went to the Lowe’s show in September, to advertise his album “143” — a comeback LP that earned among the harshest opinions of the previous yr — he informed her that the brand new music was “a real reward” and that she had reclaimed the her function as “Katy Perry”. that everybody loves”; extra particularly, she declined to ask Perry about her controversial determination to reunite with producer Dr. Luke after she beforehand break up from him within the wake of Kesha’s allegations that he sexually assaulted her. (Kesha and Luke reached a settlement in 2023.)
“I did the very best I may within the setting I used to be in to have that dialog. We each loved one another’s firm and his followers appeared to love him,” Lowe says. “At the time, given the timing of the music, the place we had been at and the velocity at which all the things was taking place, it isn’t one thing we have gotten to.”
Schusser dismisses the concept Lowe avoids tough questions, citing a 2020 interview with Justin Bieber wherein the pop star tearfully mentioned his historical past of self-destructive habits. “I’m fairly positive Justin’s publicist would not have needed the dialog to go the best way it did,” Schusser says. Yet it’s normal information within the music trade that, after Lowe conducts a pre-recorded interview (versus one he does dwell), an artist and/or their representatives are invited to request cuts – not precisely protocol even inside of the customarily pleasant world of superstar journalism.
On the opposite hand, as Lowe himself factors out, he would not work for a journalism operation. “I work at a streaming service the place we’re attempting to get extra folks to take heed to music,” says the married father of two teenage sons. “My job is to assist an organization be wholesome.” Darden, recognized on Hot 97 as an aggressive interviewer, says that “at Apple, I attempt to create extra space for the artwork and extra grace for the artist” than within the extra pressurized realm of terrestrial radio.
“People take heed to Hot within the automotive and have little time,” he says of his morning gig. “You entered the room, we have to get there. Start the chainsaw, you realize what I imply?”
For musicians planning an album launch – lots of whom already view interviews with conventional journalists as an pointless threat within the age of social media – a pleasant chat on Apple Music Radio might be a safer option to attain an viewers disinclined to fret about essentially the most delicate particulars. of how (and why) pop star content material is created.
“I can not repair any relationship between A and B: I can solely do what’s required when they need C,” Lowe says of the best way musicians work together with mainstream media and with him. “I can not play another person’s function simply because they cannot, and I’ve entry.”
And what’s the incentive to do one thing else? Schusser is not exaggerating a lot when he says, “Every artist on the planet who has a brand new venture — whether or not it is an album, a track, a tour, a collaboration — all of them come to us.” Apple’s intimacy with musicians, which it facilitates partially by paying a better per-stream royalty charge than Spotify, has all the time been essential to its model: In the early days of Apple Music, the service brokered offers for unique entry to albums by Frank Ocean, Drake and Possibilities the Rapper; Other stars with radio reveals on the platform at present embody Summer Walker, Rauw Alejandro, Jamie xx, Hardy and Elton John, who has hosted “Rocket Hour” since 2015.
“Most of the businesses which can be in streaming are tech corporations — they do not actually care concerning the music,” Schusser says. “Whether it is books or podcasts or one thing else, it is simply bits and bytes. We are a music firm and don’t have any plans so as to add extra to our music expertise. (One factor Apple has deliberate for the subsequent few years, in line with the manager: upgrading its studios in cities together with Los Angeles, Nashville, Berlin and Paris so the corporate can produce small, paid occasions.)
“Music is not eventized sufficient” within the streaming economic system, Lowe says. “He will get launched largely on the similar time, then he fights for himself, and it is actually onerous as a result of there’s rather a lot to combat in opposition to. This is certainly the cheesiest factor I can let you know, however music is extremely particular. Putting collectively an hour or two hours of radio to create an environment sends a message that it is value exhibiting up for.
