How Apple Sold a Million Drake Albums in Five Days
May 06 2016 - 08:02PM
Dow Jones News
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.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Historical Stock Chart
From Feb 2024 to Mar 2024
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2023 to Mar 2024