DJ Zane Lowe Says Apple Music Doesn’t Need Beats 1

While speaking at the Radio Festival 2015 in London, Beats 1 and former BBC DJ Zane Lowe has said that he’s unsure whether Apple Music needs the Beats 1 digital radio station, while adding that he hopes “there’s a place for it”. According to The Telegraph, Lowe was in conversation with his former boss, Ben Cooper, controller of Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra.

When asked by Cooper if Apple Music, the Californian tech company’s streaming service, needed its digital radio branch Beats 1, Lowe replied: “I’m not sure it does”.

“We’re working this out, time will tell,” he said. “We’ve been going three months, I don’t have the answers. I hope that there’s a place for it… This is in progress, and over time we’ll find out exactly why [it’s needed].”

Cooper also asked Lowe to explain why he left the BBC, to which he responded by saying, “the job wasn’t advertised, the job came along at a moment which was very unexpected because I was very happy,” adding he hadn’t previously imagined leaving either the BBC or Radio 1. “When I said yes [to the job], I felt like I said ‘no’, and then ‘yes’, and then ‘I’m not sure’.”

New Zealander Lowe was announced as one of Beats 1’s three in-residence DJs, alongside Julie Adenuga in London and Ebro Darden in New York, earlier this year.

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