NETJETS US VOLUME 12 2020

THE SMART GUIDE
SOPHISTICATED SOUNDS
The CEO of Primephonic Thomas Steffens talks to NetJets
about the world’s premier classical music streaming service.
When it turned out that these major streaming services
were not planning to fix the issues behind this, we
founded Primephonic in 2017 to solve it ourselves. We
launched in select countries in 2018, and following the
success of this, we rolled the platform out globally last
year. The app has been downloaded 250,000 times and
is available in almost all countries.
© PRIMEPHONIC
WHAT IS PRIMEPHONIC?
Primephonic is a streaming service designed from the
ground up for classical music, built to give classical fans
the best possible streaming experience. If you’ve ever
tried to search for classical music on platforms such
as Spotify or Deezer, it is often clunky and inaccurate
due to the high amount of data required—composer,
orchestra, conductor, movement, and so forth—in
comparison to a simple artist or track search in pop
music. Primephonic makes it far quicker and easier for
people to access classical music than ever before.
WHAT MAKES IT UNIQUE?
Unlike major streaming services, Primephonic
offers much higher audio quality, hand-picked
recommendations by classical experts, a superior
search function designed to handle the complex
metadata of classical music, and unique playlists and
content from the world’s leading classical performers.
Plus, perhaps more importantly, the Primephonic team
is obsessed with classical music. We’re a 40-strong
team based in Amsterdam, London, and New York
City, all from a classical music background. It is
this passion and dedication to the genre that makes
Primephonic so special, and why we put in so many
hours to make it the best that it can be.
HOW DID THE IDEA COME ABOUT?
We noticed that Spotify and Apple Music offered a
great experience to pop music fans but a disappointing
and often frustrating one to classical music lovers.
WHAT MAKES IT THE RIGHT PLACE TO STREAM
CLASSICAL MUSIC?
On top of the superior audio quality, better search
functionality, intelligent recommendations, and
unique content, Primephonic pays out to artists
more fairly than the big streaming services do. The
latter pay artists based on how many times a track
has been streamed—but since classical works tend
to be much longer than pop songs, these artists get
far fewer royalties per hour from the big streaming
services than pop artists do. It’s quite astonishing,
really. Primephonic pays based on how many seconds
have been streamed, which is much more generous,
and, more importantly, fairer to classical music artists.
WHO IS THE AUDIENCE?
Primephonic serves two audiences. First, of course,
the core classical fans who are underserved by the
mainstream streaming services. There are, however,
many people who are interested in classical music and
would love to know more but don’t really know where
to start. For them, Primephonic is the perfect starting
point, with a wealth of playlists designed to give a crash
course in composers, eras, styles, instruments, and more.
Additionally, I am incredibly passionate about introducing
younger generations to classical music. I heard something
on the news recently that stated there had been a 21%
decrease in music lessons in school. I truly believe
Primephonic is there to bridge the gap between classical
music and younger audiences.
THERE IS ALREADY A HUGE LIBRARY OF MUSIC,
PLUS PLAYLISTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS—WHAT
ELSE CAN SUBSCRIBERS LOOK FORWARD TO?
Primephonic launched our integration with Sonos
hardware last year, and this year we have finalized
integrations with other hardware products such as
Chromecast and Roon. From a content perspective,
we’re producing plenty of unique playlists and in-app
audio commentaries from the world’s leading artists,
which will be freely available for our subscribers.
primephonic.com
20 NetJets