TUNES RADIO … what’s the early take? According to WSJ’s HANNAH KARP and her article “Can iTUNES RADIO Kill The Streaming Stars?”, it’s pretty positive as it has some key features that go beyond the obvious similarities with iHEART, PANDORA, SPOTIFY, and the soon to debut GOOGLE MUSIC.

KARP notes, “The details that set it apart — exclusive song offerings, links with the iTunes store and Apple’s signature design—could help hook an older demographic on music streaming and lure others away from existing services.”
She also points out, “iTUNES RADIO allows users to create ‘stations based on a certain song or artist, which they can tailor to their tastes by providing feedback such as ‘never play this song or ‘play more like this.’ Users can also tune into 200-plus genre-based stations, but can’t play any song in the catalog at any time. The service is free, but users can opt to pay $24.99 a year to eliminate ads and store their purchased music collection in the cloud by subscribing to iTUNES MATCH.

“Many subscription music companies, from SPOTIFY to GOOGLE, offer such services. But APPLE promises to release songs before they are available on other services—something it may be able to do because of the company’s significant leverage, record companies say.”

And in the article CLEAR CHANNEL Chairman & CEO BOB PITTMAN was confident that iTUNES RADIO wouldn’t be a threat to broadcast radio or the company’s iHEART RADIO platform as custom stations didn’t seem to be a viable freestanding business. He remarked that iHEART sends listeners to iTUNES for music purchases. “If we thought they were competitive we wouldn’t be doing that.”
SPOTIFY and PANDORA also weighed in. To see their comments, the full story, and a side-by-side comparison of the features of iTUNES RADIO, SPOTIFY, GOOGLE MUSIC, and PANDORA, just click here.

Props to All Access