By Hannah Karp 

Hip-hop star Drake sold more than one million copies of his new album, "Views," in less than five days when it was available only on Apple Inc.'s iTunes download store and its subscription streaming service, Apple Music -- a rare achievement in an age of rapid streaming growth and declining sales of downloads and CDs.

But Apple's head of content, Larry Jackson, said that Drake was able to rack up such global sales precisely because he used the company's streaming service to market the album and corral his fans into one place.

Over the past year Drake has hosted 20 episodes of his radio show, OVO Sound, on Apple Music's free Beats 1 radio station, using the show to announce the album release details and to debut several songs, including his hit "Hotline Bling." Apple also advertised the album on the iTunes home page and is running TV ads for the album during the National Basketball Association's playoff games.

The album sold 632,000 copies in the first 24 hours.

The results fly in the face of industry fears that paid streaming services might hasten the continuing decline of music sales, which have fallen by more than 60% in the past 15 years, according to data from Nielsen. While that could still eventually happen, plenty of fans purchased the $13.99 Drake album last week even though they could also access it immediately, along with some 30 million other tracks, by subscribing to Apple Music for $9.99 a month -- or even just by signing up for a free trial. The album went on sale via other retailers on Friday and is to become available on other streaming services a week after that.

Apple Music users streamed the album more than 250 million times world-wide, 200 million of those times in the U.S., suggesting that Apple Music was able to get a good number of customers to sign up for free trials of its paid-only service beyond its current roughly 13 million paying subscribers and several million existing trial users. The exclusive release on Apple Music could hook more fans on subscription streaming than have releases on Spotify AB, which allows customers to use a free version indefinitely. Even though subscription streaming is commonplace in European countries such as Sweden, the practice still hasn't caught on with the mainstream in the U.S., in part, music executives say, because so many consumers use free Internet-radio services such as Pandora, which isn't widely available overseas.

Also driving Drake's sales and subscription streaming: his record label's parent company, Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, employed dozens of staff to keep "Views" videos off sites such as Alphabet Inc.'s free YouTube where they have been uploaded by users without permission, a labor-intensive process on which the record company spends millions of dollars a year to protect its big releases, a person familiar with the matter said.

The London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, along with other outside firms, are also enlisted for the major labels' big releases to make copyright claims and send takedown notices in such cases. Despite all that manpower, such efforts tend to be effective for only a short period; sustaining the campaigns would require a bigger investment from the record companies, this person said.

While Universal and the other major record labels have broad licensing agreements with YouTube, the deals don't include releases that artists wish to debut exclusively elsewhere or withhold from the service altogether.

Spotify has rewarded its most active artist participants, including electronic producer Diplo, with placement on popular playlists, ads on its free service and notifications to its app users. Jay Z's streaming service, Tidal, has offered heavy marketing to certain high-profile artists for albums they release exclusively on the service.

Mr. Jackson said he met one of Drake's managers two years ago through their mutual friend Maverick Carter, business manager of basketball star LeBron James. At the time, Mr. Jackson said, many music fans didn't know where to go find their favorite artists' latest tunes, given the overwhelming range of streaming services and music sites.

Months earlier Apple had purchased the Beats Music subscription service from music mogul Jimmy Iovine and rap star Dr. Dre, now Apple executives, and Mr. Jackson said he began talking frequently to Drake and his managers about the idea of putting all of his music in one place to "educate fans."

By the time Apple Music launched in June, Drake had signed a deal with the service that included his radio show, sponsorship of his upcoming tour and significant marketing for his recorded music, people familiar with the matter said. But his record label, Vivendi SA's Republic Records, began negotiations for the exclusive album rights only about six months ago, said Monte Lipman, the label's chairman and chief executive.

Drake encouraged his fans to visit Apple Music by debuting his joint mixtape with rapper Future, "What a Time to Be Alive," on his radio show in September and took to his radio show to feud with hip-hop artist Meek Mill. Earlier this year, when pop star Taylor Swift started discussing the idea of a commercial featuring her listening to Apple Music while running on a treadmill, Mr. Jackson suggested she sing along to Drake and Future's hit "Jumpman," more than quintupling the song's sales that week.

Write to Hannah Karp at hannah.karp@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 06, 2016 19:47 ET (23:47 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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