APPLE'S NEW SEVIOUR

In yet another clear sign that Apple Music is doubling down on its commitment to original content, the service has just announced the hiring of former Epic Records EVP Scott Seviour. His title, tellingly, is Manager, Original Content. He'll be reporting to Head of Content Larry Jackson.

Seviour, who left the label world back in 2014, was formerly EVP Marketing & Artist Development at Epic, with a strong background in video production.

This year, Apple Music has produced a wide variety not only of album content—with exclusives from Drake, Chance the Rapper, Future, Travis Scott and, of course, Frank Ocean—but also video offerings; these include Ocean’s longform art piece Endless, Taylor Swift’s The 1989 World Tour film and clips from The Weeknd (“Can’t Feel My Face”), M.I.A. (“Borders”) and Eminem (“Phenomenal”), among others.

Despite the music industry's resistance to exclusives, subscription rates are currently healthy for Apple Music and its main competitor Spotify. The hiring of the well-respected Seviour to join the efforts already pioneered by Jimmy Iovine and the Apple Music team signals what will surely be a further upping of the ante in 2017, with the premium service’s ever-growing investment in original, exclusive content paralleling that of subscription giant Netflix.