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Business News Digital
Apple Music disputes ‘half of users no longer streaming’ stat
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 20 August 2015
Hey everybody, stop saying that no one is using Apple Music.
Stop saying that half of the eleven million people Apple claims to have signed up actually tuned out on day one and have been in counselling every since.
Stop saying half of all Apple Music users immediately declared “what the fuck is this shit, can’t I just have another mind-numbingly dull U2 album instead?”
Stop saying that the new Dre album is only scoring impressive streaming stats because every member of staff at Apple has been ordered to play it on a loop.
Stop saying that this whole shambles will just end up being the most expensive launch of an old school radio station in history.
Stop saying that the music industry’s grand hope that Apple could take streaming mainstream has already fallen on its ass, and frankly we’re all fucked, so let’s just ride the wave into oblivion and assume we’ll all be out of work and homeless by Christmas.
Stop saying that not only is the Apple Music experience pretty lacklustre, but the playlists I spent hours curating on iTunes are no longer there, which makes playing my existing MP3 collection no fun at all, so I’ve started just listening to Radio 4 documentaries on the BBC iPlayer instead.
Because NONE of those things are true. Apart from the last one.
Anyway, Apple has responded to a piece of research by a guy called Russ Crupnick at a company called MusicWatch, in which he estimated – based on a survey of 5000 US consumers earlier this month – that 48% of the people who had signed up for the tech giant’s new streaming service and tried it out but were no longer actively using it.
Not true, say the Apple men to The Verge. 79% of those who signed up for Apple Music are still happily streaming away, thank you very much kind sir. “So that Crupnick cunt can fuck off”, they didn’t add.
So there you go. It has to be said, those in the know at the labels seem to remain happy with Apple Music’s user and streaming numbers, and that the new player in the market isn’t cannibalising either download sales or subscriber numbers on rival platforms. So job done. Though everyone still awaits the end of the big three month free trial at the start of October, when the real test begins, will the early adopters start paying?
