On Tuesday, March 28, Apple will launch its highly anticipated Apple Music Classical service. The mood is one of excitement to see such a big company devote a service to classical music. Will the arrival of Apple upset the on-demand listening ecosystem in the industry? Before gauging the new parts offer in our Wednesday edition, we will set out the forces involved and, in tomorrow’s edition, the strategic challenges of the market.
According to figures from the 2022 Annual Report of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), on-demand listening now represents 84% of music revenue, which totals in the United States a record figure of 13.3 billion. US dollars. This continued and dramatic growth—the 10 billion milestone was passed in 2019—is attributable to streaming (streaming). The number of subscriptions to online listening services, which was 46.9 million in 2018, has doubled in 5 years, with 92 million subscribers in 2022.
600 million subscribers
Listening on demand, of which artists complain so much, therefore pays off “somewhere”, and its inevitable hegemony on the market is undeniable. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) provides a global view of the phenomenon. In his Global Music Report 2022published on March 21, 2023, the IFPI corroborates the trend: “the global recorded music market grew by 9% in 2022, driven by the growth of the streaming paying by subscription. Globally, the IFPI counts 589 million paid subscriptions at the end of 2022.
The lion’s share is captured by three players, Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music. Spotify claimed, at the end of 2022, 489 million users, including 205 million paying. As of mid-2022, the numbers are 88 million for Apple Music and 80 million for YouTube Music and YouTube Premium.
But classical music lovers do not necessarily evolve in this universe of passive listening and playlists. This is what Apple, much more than Spotify and Google (YouTube), understood. In addition, music lovers are not helped by the databases created for pop, according to the “performer-song-album” logic, which are not adapted for classical music.
19 months of waiting
This observation led to the creation of Idagio in Germany in 2015, a service built on its own database, with classic logic. Idagio was imitated in the fall of 2018 by the Dutch company Primephonic, with less accomplished work. On August 30, 2021, Apple announced the acquisition ofe Primephonic in order to offer “a few months [plus tard] “, a “significantly enriched classical music listening experience”. Here we are, 19 months later, on the eve of discovering the results of this synergy.
Founder and CEO of Idagio, Till Janczukowicz, interviewed by The dutyat the time of the takeover, valued Primephonic’s market penetration at around one-third that of his company. Since its launch, Idagio has enriched its content with videos “modeled on the Digital Concert Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic”.
But on the audio side, Idagio has remained with the lossless compressed file (FLAC), equivalent to the sound quality of the CD, without launching into “high definition”. [24 bits-96 kHz, qualité de la bande studio]. Till Janczukowicz justifies this choice by market studies and the fact that, according to him “nobody understands the difference between 16 bits and 24 bits”.
Two other services have thus, although operating on the traditional search platform, captured a good part of the traditional clientele by offering added sound value: Tidal, with its “Studio Master” service, and especially Qobuz, the only platform offering the true high definition. “Over 80% of our customers are audiophiles. They want to be able to listen to their music on their hifi equipment […] to savor all the details of the works,” says Marc Zisman, music director at Qobuz. Qobuz will finally arrive in Quebec in May 2023, on the ruins of QUB musique.
Unexpected
Will it not be too late for this service that local music lovers and audiophiles have been waiting for for years? Qobuz should easily replace Tidal which, for the moment, occupies the niche “for lack of anything better”. He can also face Idagio, because many are those who believe, like us, to hear the difference.
But two new pitfalls will arise. First, the question of the organization and presentation of content. For Apple Music Classical, it will be documented on Wednesday, but Apple Music, the basic service of the inventor of the “family plan”, has improved considerably in recent years. If the music director of Qobuz praises the editorial support of “classical music lovers in musical discovery through a very eclectic educational “curation”, Apple Music is not very far from it.
But there is, above all, the huge surprise Presto Music. The British online music retailer specializing in classical and jazz, announced on March 6 the launch of Presto Music Streaming Service, with, when available, high resolution 24 bits-96 kHz or 192 kHz.
The database, forged on that of the mail-order company founded in 2001, which has been operating in downloading since 2010, is reassuringly efficient. “For three years, we have been working to transfer this data to make streaming “, says Chris O’Reilly, founder and president and CEO, who was not discouraged by the arrival of Apple. His serve rolls impeccably, with no frills, setting the bar high for the elephant about to enter the room.
Idagio, Qobuz, Apple, Presto: this will be the playground of music lovers in the near future. We will see tomorrow with what issues.