Beats 1 is ‘the biggest radio station in the world’ according to Apple Music executives
Speaking with The Verge to discuss Apple Music’s blow away success with Drake’s 22-song release which was streamed 89.9 million times in its first 24 hours of availability on Apple Music, Apple Music executives Jimmy Iovine, Robert Kondrk, and Zane Lowe have revealed details on how the company worked with the Canadian rapper as well as sharing information on Beats 1 as a whole.
According to The Verge, Drake’s album, “More Life”, helped Apple beat Spotify’s 24 hours streaming record by 30 million even though the service has more active users than Apple Music. During the interview, Larry Jackson claimed “biggest radio station in the world.”, something which has raised a couple of eyebrows considering Apple has been reluctant to provide concrete listener data.
Larry said that Drake very much took a chance on Apple Music. “We weren’t a proven hit, we weren’t a proven entity at all, whatsoever,” he explained. Jimmy Iovine added that Apple has worked to build Beats 1 around what Drake wants and needs:
“We learned so much from just building what Drake needed,” Iovine added. “He had the idea, we kind of just built and supported around him, and we’ve learned a lot from that, and the entire industry has learned a lot from that.” – “It’s the biggest radio station in the world. There’s no way you’re going to find another station that has as many concurrent listeners and audience-wise as Beats 1, period,” Jackson said.
Drake is no stranger to Apple Music, he launched the service at Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in 2016 and has since featured in a commercial promoting the streaming service.