Jeff Gamet

On November 6th Apple is replacing the 2018 Midterm Elections channel in the News app with Election Night. The updated channel will offer real time updates, news, infographics, and election results. The switch will happen at 8 PM eastern time, according to TechCrunch. They say,

All the news coverage in the hub isn’t being driven by algorithms. For Apple News’ team, Election Night is an all-hands-on-deck type of situation involving real human editors. In fact, human editorial oversight is a key difference between Apple’s approach to news aggregation and curation, compared with competitors like Google, Twitter and Facebook — all of which have come under fire for their outsized roles in the spread of information, and, at times, disinformation.

The Election Night channel will replace the News Digest tab at bottom of the News app so it’ll be easy to find.

Apple is reportedly in talks to buy a stake in iHeartMedia. The radio broadcast company is currently US$20 billion in debt and desperately in need of a big cash infusion, which an Apple deal could provide. For Apple, it could bring Apple Music’s Beats 1 streaming radio station to a much wider audience. The Financial Times (subscription required) says,

A partnership could see Apple Music’s Beats 1 radio station, which is only available through its apps, make its debut on broadcast radio. Extra distribution would give Beats 1 and Apple Music greater awareness among older audiences who are later adopters of streaming services. A deal would also put the Apple station into more cars or kitchens.

The bigger benefit for Apple could be negotiating power. iHeartMedia is the largest radio broadcast company in the U.S., and owning part of that could help Apple to convince artists and labels to release first on Apple Music instead of Spotify.