Another rumor surrounding Apple’s (AAPL) upcoming streaming radio project has the tech world abuzz. The Verge reported Friday that Apple is “pushing hard” for an ‘iRadio’ summertime launch.
“[M]ultiple music industry insiders have told The Verge that significant progress has been made in the talks with two of the top labels: Universal and Warner. One of the sources said “iRadio is coming. There’s no doubt about it anymore.” Apple is pushing hard for a summertime launch.”
New talk of Apple’s alleged iRadio subscription music service, similar to the likes of Pandora and Spotify, comes after a report by The New York Post earlier in March claimed that Cupertino was negotiating hard with record labels and insisting that it pays an industry-low of 6 cents per 100 songs streamed. That’s about half the royalties leading online radio service Pandora currently pays for the rights to stream music to its listeners.
Record labels believe Apple — which is sitting on a cash hoard of roughly $137 billion — should pay at least the rate set by the Copyright Royalty Board for companies that don’t own broadcast operations, which comes out to about 21 cents per 100 songs. That is still lower than 35 cents per 100 songs streamed that subscription service Spotify pays for its service.
If the rumors are true and iRadio happens, it’ll be interesting to see how Apple implements it and how pricing would work.
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