Beats Music
Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine's curated streaming service, bought by Apple after four months and folded into Apple Music
Beats Music was a $9.99 a month streaming service from Beats Electronics, launched on 21 January 2014 with human-curated playlists, Trent Reznor as chief creative officer and an AT&T family plan, built on the bones of MOG, which Beats had bought in 2012. Apple announced its $3 billion purchase of Beats on 28 May 2014, when the service had about 250,000 subscribers, and closed Beats Music on 30 November 2015, five months after launching Apple Music on its foundations.
Timeline [edit]
- 2012
-
2 July 2012
Acquisition
Beats buys MOG
The streaming service that becomes Beats Music.
- 2013
-
10 January 2013
Feature
Project Daisy announced
Trent Reznor and Ian Rogers join.
- 2014
-
21 January 2014
Launch
Beats Music launches
$9.99 a month, curated playlists, AT&T family plan.
-
2 February 2014
Feature
Super Bowl ad
Ellen DeGeneres and bears; the app briefly buckles under demand.
-
28 May 2014
Acquisition
Apple to buy Beats for $3 billion
About 250,000 subscribers at the time.
-
1 August 2014
Acquisition
Deal closes
Rogers and Reznor go to work on Apple's service.
- 2015
-
30 June 2015
other
Apple Music launches
Beats Music's curation and family plan, under a new name.
-
12 November 2015
Shutdown announced
Shutdown notice
Beats Music ends 30 November; move playlists to Apple Music.
-
30 November 2015
Shutdown
Beats Music closes
Subscriptions cancelled.
The site through time
Browse beatsmusic.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:
Ownership [edit]
Key figures [edit]
| Metric | Value | As of | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registered accounts ▲ | 250,000 | May 2014 | Reported Widely reported subscriber count around the Apple acquisition; about 111,000 in March 2014, roughly 300,000 when the deal closed |
Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate
Why it shut down [edit]
Official line: Apple announced on 28 May 2014 that it was buying Beats Electronics and Beats Music for $3 billion, roughly $500 million of it for the streaming service, and closed the deal on 1 August 2014. Beats Music's team, its curation and its "The Sentence" feature became the core of Apple Music, launched on 30 June 2015. On 12 November 2015 Apple told the remaining subscribers that Beats Music would end on 30 November 2015 and their playlists could move to Apple Music.
Our analysis: Beats Music was never really allowed to be a company. It launched in January, was in acquisition talks by spring and belonged to Apple by August, with somewhere around a quarter of a million subscribers. Apple did not buy the service, it bought Iovine, Reznor, Rogers and the idea that human curation could sell subscriptions, and once Apple Music existed there was no reason to keep the earlier brand alive. Its death was the plan.
History [edit]
Project Daisy
Beats Electronics, the headphone company founded by Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, bought the streaming service MOG in July 2012 and, with Trent Reznor as chief creative officer and former Topspin boss Ian Rogers as CEO, rebuilt it as "Project Daisy". The pitch was curation: instead of an algorithm, playlists made by editors and musicians, a "Just For You" feed and "The Sentence", a Mad Libs box that turned "I'm at the gym and feel like fighting with my friends to hip hop" into a playlist. Beats Music launched on 21 January 2014 at $9.99 a month, on iOS, Android and Windows Phone, with a 20 million track catalogue and an AT&T family plan for $14.99 that covered five people, an unusual deal that Apple later copied. It bought a Super Bowl ad with Ellen DeGeneres and bears two weeks in.
Growth was modest. Reports put it at about 111,000 subscribers in March 2014 and around 250,000 by May. That was enough.
Apple
On 28 May 2014 Apple announced it was buying Beats Electronics and Beats Music for $3 billion, its largest acquisition ever, with Iovine and Dre joining the company; the Wall Street Journal reported just under $500 million of the price was for the streaming service. The deal closed on 1 August 2014, and Rogers, Reznor and the Beats editorial team went to work on what became Apple Music, announced at WWDC on 8 June 2015 and launched on 30 June: the same curated playlists, "For You" recommendations and family plan, plus Beats 1 radio.
Beats Music carried on for a few more months for existing subscribers, and on 12 November 2015 Apple posted a notice that the service would shut down on 30 November 2015. Subscriptions were cancelled, playlists could be moved to Apple Music, and the brand went back to being a headphone company.
The domain today
beatsmusic.com no longer resolves; Beats by Dre is sold through beatsbydre.com and Apple.
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Sources [edit]
- Beats announces Project Daisy streaming music service The Verge 10 January 2013
- Beats Music arrives January 21st, family plan exclusive to AT&T customers The Verge 11 January 2014
- Beats Music enters online streaming market The New York Times 11 January 2014
- Apple paying just under $500 million for Beats Music streaming service The Wall Street Journal 29 May 2014
- Apple to acquire Beats Music & Beats Electronics Apple Newsroom 28 May 2014
- Beat it: Apple Music replaces Beats Music TechCrunch 8 June 2015
- Apple's former Beats Music service officially ending on November 30 MacRumors 12 November 2015
- Beats Music to shut down on November 30 TechCrunch 13 November 2015
Last verified: 15 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).