Steve Savoca, Spotify’s former vice president of Content, is now part of the Apple Music team. He joined Apple in January and is serving the in same role for Apple Music.
Mr. Savoca is in charge of label relations for Apple Music, according to Business Insider. He’s focusing on independent labels with a slant towards labels outside the United States.
Apple and Spotify are competing for streaming music market, and Spotify is currently in the lead with about double the number of subscribers with 40 million. Spotify has several years lead, but Apple has the advantage of including Apple Music support with all of its devices instead of requiring users download a third-party app.
Bundling Apple Music support isn’t, however, enough to set it apart from Spotify so the company is looking to do more. Apple’s strategy is to make Apple Music the go-to place for music and video—essentially the 2017 version of the early MTV years.
Apple Music executive Jimmy Iovine said earlier this year, “What we’re trying to create is an entire cultural, pop cultural experience, and that happens to include audio and video.”
It looks like Apple is shooting for a more diverse music collection, too. Offering the same music library as Spotify won’t make Apple Music stand out, hence the hunt for more unique content.
Mr. Savoca seems to be well suited for the task considering his history in the record industry. Prior to his stint at Spotify Mr. Savoca worked for Domino Recording, Zomba Label Group, and Sire Records. He also worked for Brite Nation, which is a consulting firm that works with independent record labels.
For Spotify, this all means it’s more important than ever to watch Apple and to step up its own game.
Somewhat off topic: I had occasion to load a CD-based audiobooks into iTunes last night. What a mess! Why, when I first opened the CD, didn’t iTunes ask if I wanted to add it to the iTunes audiobook library? Why did iTunes, even though it recognized the files as “audiobook” add the tracks as “songs” in my iTunes library?
Who’s in charge of iTunes and why isn’t Tim Cook holding that person accountable? I don’t want to be one of those “If Steve were alive….” people; but it’s hard to imagine he’d left such an important piece of software devolve into the user horror it is today.