Editors' Blogs

On September 9, Apple rolled out version 9 of iTunes. Part of the software update included a reorganization and thinning out of the available streaming radio content that iTunes offers. Several genres were eliminated entirely, with their stations either being moved into neighboring genres or eliminated outright. This included Ambient, Folk, and Public radio stations.

The commentary on the Apple discussion forums was quick to erupt, and thank heavens, remained largely civil and constructive. (You can read it here as it continues.) Where did all the stations go, people wondered?

A member of the iTunes Radio Directory team, which updates the stations available to iTunes on a rolling basis, wrote a letter in response to the forum chat, which can be found here.

"In regards to the genres we have changed them for iTunes 9, the goal was to make them match more traditional radio genres and the most popular stations in our directory.  While Ambient went away a lot of the stations are still listed in other genres, most likely electronica or eclectic.  We did add some new genres such as 70's, 80's, 90's and Adult Contemporary as well as some other ones. 

The most important thing to us here at iTunes Radio is making a directory that our customers and broadcasters love.  If we continue to get a lot of feedback that Ambient is a genre you all love and want back we can explore that option. [...] Thank you again for your patience while we fix a few of these issues, we hope you love the end result, and really appreciate the feedback you guys are leaving.  We will do our best to reply to any email you send our way as well."

This struck me as very funny (and I don't mean funny ha-ha, I mean funny "Huh?"). And in a letter to the iTunes Radio team member, I said so. Excerpts:

"Per your request I am going on record as asking that Ambient be brought back as a genre option in iTunes Radio 9 and that the previously available stations in that genre be reinstated to where they can easily be found.

There are a lot of people on the referenced discussion thread talking about how they miss the Ambient stations as great music for relaxation and increased productivity; of course I'm biased in my opinions, but I believe that completely removing Ambient from the choices was a very ill thought out decision, and I strongly urge you to bring it back.

Considering that millions of people consider traditional terrestrial radio to be dead, and iTunes to be a large part of why no one is mourning its death, I find it odd that this fantastic, groundbreaking software would suddenly elect to take a major step backwards and try to align itself with the genre organization of a medium that is widely acknowledged as being far too narrowly classified and overstructured for its own good health. When has iTunes ever been about removing choices and capabilities rather than enhancing them?"

A number of other people wrote in as well, many of them more eloquent than I. I don't have permission to quote their letters here. The upshot was that the team member wrote back to the list (and to me in private email) within only a few hours and cheerfully told us that Ambient would be restored on the morning of the 11th... and as of about four hours ago, it was.

This only affects a small number of people in the vast world of iTunes listeners, but it's significant for several reasons. The most obvious is that a company the size of Apple listened to a tiny group of unhappy customers and did something to make them happy. The response in the Ambient community has been stunned and pleased disbelief. "You mean they listened to us?" Yeah, they did.

Second, it shows that whether or not my letter struck a chord with the iTunes folks, they are now being forced to re-evaluate their simplification of their system. Internet Radio is all about huge numbers of stations and a wide variety of choices; the guys at Apple who decide which stations to add or remove have an unenviably difficult job, but I would love to know how many iTunes users actually complained that it was too hard to search for stations in the old iTunes 8 Radio Directory. Was this reorganization and simplification really necessary? Was it worthwhile to pull entire genres of music? Apple was forcibly told it wasn't, by one small group, and now we can hope that they're taking a hard look at their philosophy and perhaps rethinking their role as gatekeeper for streaming content to millions of listeners.

As of today (which is still very early days yet), the Folk and Public radio genres haven't been restored, and requests for them are only just beginning to pick up steam. My suggestion is, if you have a computer that has iTunes 8 on it and can keep that computer from updating for a while, find another machine with iTunes 9 already installed (remember, you can't downgrade once you upgrade, your Library won't be backward compatible) and A/B the Radio listings. If you see something in the new version that you feel doesn't make sense, write to the folks at Apple via the Discussion Forum and let them know. All I ask is that you be nice about it; they were very fast to respond to the community in part because few if any of the people involved were insulting or mean-spirited.

I am very pleased that one of my favorite genres has been reinstated in iTunes Radio, and look forward to seeing how others are treated in this regard. Apple has shown itself to be responsive to its audience; I would like to see that go further and prompt a realization of just how much otherwise-inaccessible music reaches the world because iTunes has always written its own rules.

For now... thank you, Apple, and keep up the good fight.