iTunesRadio will beat industry leader Pandora to the UK and Canada, people with
knowledge of the situation told Bloomberg. Apple is
moving faster than Pandora because it has deals with Universal Music Group and
other record companies for international rights, whereas Pandora relies on
rights granted by government entities.
The
music streaming service is also expected to roll out next year in Australia and
New Zealand, where Pandora already operates, and Nordic countries are being
targeted in the same time frame, the people said.
iTunesRadio launched in the United States on 18 September 2013 – the same day as
Apple iOS 7. It is available across devices, including being integrated into
the Music app on portable iOS devices and Apple TV as well as iTunes on OS X
and Windows.
The
service is free and ad-supported, like Spotify, and features advertising from a
number of global brands including McDonald’s, Pepsi, Nissan and Procter &
Gamble. Audio advertisements run on the service at a rate of one every 15
minutes, with video ads playing roughly every hour.
Users
are able to skip tracks, customise stations, and purchase the station's songs
from the iTunes Store. The number of track skips are limited, like Pandora
Radio's service, but iTunes Match subscribers can access an ad-free version of
the service.
The
service has pre-loaded stations, including a playlist of trending songs on
Twitter, or users can create their own stations based on artists they like.
iTunesRadio is now the biggest challenger to Pandora in the US, and more than 11
million listeners sampled the service in the five days after it became
available.
Eddy
Cue, the Apple senior vice president in charge of iTunes, told the Associated
Press last week that the company wants to eventually bring iTunes Radio to more
than 100 countries.
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