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Apple Music TV is a new take on the 24-hour music video channel

By Simon Cohen October 19, 2020

If you miss the halcyon days of MTV in its prime, Apple thinks you might want to check out Apple Music TV. It’s a free, 24-hour a day curated livestream of music videos, according to Variety, which will also feature live shows and events as well as chart countdowns and guests.

Limited to U.S. residents for now, the livestream can be accessed via the Apple TV app, on the web, and as a new tab within the Apple Music app on all supported devices. Given that the Apple TV app is now available on a huge variety of smart TVs and streaming media devices, there are going to be very few people who do not have access to Apple Music TV.

Digital Trends tried to access the new channel via the web but it kept redirecting to an Apple TV App landing page.

The new channel will host video premieres at noon ET every Friday, according to The Verge, starting with Joji’s 777 and Saint Jhn’s Gorgeous on the 23rd. On Thursday, October 22, Apple TV Music will play host to a Bruce Springsteen takeover, as a promotional lead-up to his new album Letter to You. Programming for this event will include an exclusive interview with Zane Lowe, the anchor host of Apple Music’s Apple Music 1 radio station (formerly Beats 1).

It’s not clear if Apple intends to use advertising to keep Apple Music TV free, but given that this is the model for virtually all other free on-demand and livestream content, it seems like a distinct possibility. Apple does not currently offer a free tier of its Apple Music service.

It’s also not clear if audiences are now living in a post-MTV world. With most music videos available with just a few clicks on YouTube, will folks be content to turn on a classic TV experience and simply let a curated list of music videos wash over them?

Recently, Apple has been pouring a lot of energy into making its Apple TV app a global phenomenon. It has struck deals with major TV companies like Samsung, LG, Vizio, and Sony to get the TV app onto these devices, and similar deals have been signed with Roku and Amazon’s Fire TV platforms.

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Contributing Editor, A/V

Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like…

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If you spend even a little time online, you've probably heard of Spotify. It's a popular free and paid music-streaming service founded in Stockholm in 2006 by Swedish friends Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. Fun fact: the name happened by fluke when the partners were shouting names back and forth from different rooms in Ek's Stockholm flat, and Ek misheard one of Lorentzon's suggestions as "Spotify." They later backtracked the meaning as a combination of spot and identify, and there you have it.
Spotify today is a behemoth of a streaming service that also offers access to podcasts, videos, and highly tailored playlists driven by your unique usage. With several plan tiers to choose from, Spotify's free version lets you listen to unlimited music, podcasts, and even videos, so you can explore your taste without shelling out a thing, but you do have to endure ads and limited functionality (more on that below). It does offer much more robust paid options (more below, too), but the free version is more than enough for the casual listener.
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