Digital music service Beats Music to launch in January

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Beats Music, the digital music spinoff from the maker of Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, is set to launch in January...

Lilly Workneh

Dec 5, 2013

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Beats Music, the digital music spinoff from the maker of Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, is set to launch in January.

The launch date — slightly later than the late 2013 target set earlier — was announced by CEO Ian Rogers in a blog post Wednesday. He acknowledged the delay, attaching a video of an Orson Welles pitch in which the late actor says, “We will sell no wine before its time.”

Rogers didn’t offer details on the Beats Music model. It will likely compete with streaming subscription services like Spotify, Rhapsody and Rdio.

Beats Music is based on the platform of MOG. MOG, a subscription music service, was bought in July 2012 by Beats Electronics LLC, the headphones maker founded in 2008 by hip-hop producer Dr. Dre and music executive Jimmy Iovine. Beats Music became a stand-alone company in March after a $60 million investment led by Access Industries, which also bought Warner Music Group Corp. in June 2011.

MOG costs $10 a month for unlimited playback of more than 15 million tracks on mobile devices, or $5 a month for ad-free listening on computers.

MOG subscribers were sent emails Wednesday encouraging them to save usernames on BeatsMusic.com.