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Beats headphones to add streaming music in January

Beats headphones will add Beats Music to its business model.  Beats music is based on MOG, a subscription music service, bought by the headphones company founded by Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine.

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(AP Photo/Mike McCarn)
Carolina Panthers' QB Cam Newton wears pink Beats headphones before an NFL football game against the St. Louis Rams in Charlotte, N.C., in October 2013. Beats headphones cost $200-$450 each.
  • By Staff Associated Press

| Los Angeles

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.

Here's part of Rogers' post:

If you’ve spent any time around me in the past six months you’ve surely seen me buried in my phone making playlists, poking, prodding, and testing our forthcoming service, Beats Music. Sincere thanks to those who have been testing the private Alpha-turned-Beta along with me. We’re nearly ready for liftoff. Thanks to your diligent testing and feedback we are locked and loaded, ready to launch here in the US in January, 2014.

But starting today, you can visit BeatsMusic.com and reserve your username so when Beats Music launches your preferred handle will be ready for you and not competing with everyone else with the same name. Pass this along so your friends aren’t the equivalent of @iancr42.

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.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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