Apple launches a U.S.-only music video station, Apple Music TV – ProWellTech
Apple is expanding its investment in music with today’s introduction of Apple music TELEVISION. “The new music video station offers a free, 24-hour live stream of popular music videos and other music content, including exclusive video premieres, curated music video blocks, live shows, fan events, chart countdowns and guest appearances.
The service does not have its own app, but is offered as a new function in two of Apple’s existing entertainment apps. At startup, you can watch Apple Music TV from the Browse tab of the Apple Music app or the Apple TV app. (Accessible via apple.co/AppleMusicTV).
While Apple Music is a paid subscription service, Apple Music TV will be free for users in the United States, according to the company.
To kick off the launch, Apple Music TV began today with a countdown of the 100 most streamed songs of all Apple Music versions, based on US dates.
On brief tests of the new service, we found that it was a pretty basic (albeit uncensored) experience. The video stream initially only offered artist and song details instead of how the music was played. The integration in Apple Music was also not used to offer paying subscribers additional functions – for example the ability to favorite the track or add it to a playlist.
The stream stopped when the Apple Music app was closed because background playback was not supported.
Credit: Apple
There were also no onscreen tools to let you share what you were watching through a social media post. You had to dig to find the Share button under the three-dot More menu. This would give you a link to the tweet, but not prefill it with text or hashtags like the artist name or song.
While listening, you can stop the live stream and return after a short pause. However, after a while, the stream got disconnected and the thumbnail of the paused music video reverts to the placeholder Apple Music TV picture. In live mode, text and symbols are displayed in red. They’ll be white again as a visual cue when you’ve disconnected.
Despite its simplicity, Apple Music TV provides Apple with an immediate new home for its original music-related content, which over the years has included exclusive interviews, concert films, and more. It also gives Apple another advantage when it comes to negotiating with artists about their premieres, as it introduces an additional platform to reach an artist’s fans – not just with the premiere itself, but by giving artists blocks of airtime offers that lead to their next debut you can use to promote their releases.
The new station can also use content produced for the Apple Music 1 (formerly Beats 1) radio station while these promotions are running.
For example, on Thursday, October 22nd, Apple Music TV will announce the upcoming release of Bruce Springsteen’s “Letter to you”With music video blocks with his best videos as well as an exclusive interview with Zane Lowe and a special livestream fan event.
On Fridays the focus will be on new music. This Friday, October 23rd, at 9 am, Apple Music TV is showing two new exclusive video premieres – Joji’s “777” and SAINt JHN’s “Gorgeous”.
Of course, the biggest advantage of Apple Music TV is the fact that it is freely available to millions of Apple device owners.
However, there can be traction issues as it doesn’t have the features that make other livestream fan events or premieres interesting – like group chats or face-to-face interactions with the developers.
Instead, it is more like a traditional TV show – even MTV-esque – compared to other online destinations where artists now connect with fans and promote their albums, like YouTube, VEVO or, more recently, Facebook, which just this one Year brought out music videos.
Apple didn’t say whether it plans to expand the new station outside of the US
