Topping the music industry’s shuffles this week is Ole Obermann jumping ship from TikTok to Apple Music. Is this merely the rumble before the earthquake?
The timing of Obermann’s move is eyebrow-raising, to say the least – and raises more questions on whether TikTok will survive after the “ban” shifts to the next stage in the United States.
This is all happening as monster billion-dollar offers are being floated for the short-form juggernaut — at last count, we tallied ten possible bids once Elon confirmed his disinterest. In terms of the actual price tag, the highest whisper figure is close to $50 billion, though a bidding war could push the nose-bleeding higher.
Even MrBeast wants a piece of the action — but with so many high-dollar offers and interested billionaires, not to mention Trump snowplowing the lane to facilitate a deal, the obvious question lingers: Why hasn’t this thing sold, shifted into a joint venture, or otherwise transacted yet?
One obvious possibility is that ByteDance simply doesn’t want to sell, and they’re not playing this game. Go figure—not everyone likes taking orders from the United States and Trump, though a hard ‘no’ could torpedo the whole thing.
Which brings us back to Obermann, who might be jumping ship right before the hull hits the iceberg.
But — Apple Music? Some observers have been quick to point out that Obermann cuts a hostile profile towards creators and music IP owners — yet he’s now shifting to the very pro-creator Apple Music.
Maybe that image is unfair, though based on our conversations and canvassing, there’s plenty of lingering bad blood following Obermann’s TikTok tenure. During his five-plus years at the ByteDance wunderapp, Obermann oversaw two extremely high-profile royalty showdowns involving Universal Music Group and indie consortium Merlin. And those are just the hard-nosed highlights.
In the case of UMG, TikTok’s insultingly low royalty rates bubbled to the surface during the label’s pullout, with the hard-negotiating Obermann and team ByteDance refusing to budge until they were forced to.
In the case of indie labels, Obermann & Co. pushed out Merlin entirely while forcing take-it-or-leave-it deals on divided-and-conquered labels. Obermann somehow blamed the media for the resulting bad rap, but will indie labels’ resulting bad blood complicate future discussions at Apple, particularly if Obermann occupies a business development role?
Some are also pointing to a potentially big issue with UMG and Apple’s new recruit, as well as other content owners large and small — but let’s see how things shake out. Will Apple’s latest hire put a dent in its creator- and IP-friendly cred?
Shifting to the product front, what does this mean for Apple Music?
“Please don’t make Apple Music into TikTok,” you can hear every Apple Music subscriber plead, particularly those proudly outside the Z or alpha age ranges. Though perhaps a more sophisticated product strategy than just ‘TikTok-ification‘ is afoot.
Meanwhile, DMN Pro subscribers know that Apple Music is hot on the heels of Spotify when it comes to streaming subscriber dominance, especially with Spotify losing some serious momentum in the US in 2024. We’ll keep you posted on the emerging horse race — though Apple Music is now swinging for the fences after a massive Super Bowl Halftime sponsorship that clocked record viewership.
Case in point: Apple touted an aggressive $2.99-a-month deal for 6 months during that same record-setting Super Bowl LIX. Maybe 2025 is Apple Music’s year — though we’ll make some popcorn as this DSP battle-of-the-ages unfolds.
