The music industry veteran spoke to the media at the annual Television Critics Association winter press tour on Saturday. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Iovine stated “At Apple Music, what we’re trying to create is an entire cultural, pop cultural experience and that happens to include audio and video. If South Park walks into my office, I am not going to say you’re not musicians, you know? We’re going to do whatever hits popular culture smack on the nose. We’re going to try.”
At this point, maybe some of Apple’s media divisions are due for a re-branding? After all, Apple Music tells the user “we do music.”
Iovine was plugging his new HBO documentary The Defiant Ones, which centers on his musical partnership with Dr. Dre. You might recall that massive deal that brought Beats to the Apple ecosystem, and Dre and Iovine along with it.
Apple as a company has never been one to shy away from, as Iovine stated, “hit popular culture smack on the nose.” After all, one of its earliest ad campaigns centered around the phrase “Think Different.” So in its efforts to compete, company-created content is on the agenda. THR notes that Apple Music has already ventured into original programming “with the 2016 acquisition of the Carpool Karaoke series, based on the wildly popular Late, Late Show segment from James Corden and produced by CBS Television Studios.”
There’s also a six-episode series called Vital Signs, which Dr. Dre stars in and executive produces. THR adds that the series was “being eyed for Apple Music distribution, but as of February, it was unclear if Apple TV, the iTunes store or other Apple platforms (or even a traditional television distributor) would be involved. Vital Signs would mark the company’s first investment in scripted television.”
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