iHeartRadio says it isn’t afraid of Apple Music

Today iHeartMedia is announcing a new partnership with Virgin America that will put iHeartRadio-curated music streams in the ears of Virgin passengers.

Virgin will add streams titled Atmospheres, Dub & Dubber, Dyna-Mic Flows, Pop, Skip & A Jump, Lat-Indie, and Soul-igarchy to its inflight entertainment line-up. The streams were designed as a collaboration between iHeart and Virgin’s film and television development team, Virgin Produced. Virgin passengers can listen to the streams for free.

The launch comes as Apple rolls out its own music streaming service, Apple Music. iHeartRadio’s executive teams said it isn’t concerned about the launch of a new competitor.

“They sell music the way that people used to sell CDs and we curate it. There’s definitely a place for both of us,” said Michele Laven, president of business development and partnerships at iHeart.

Laven is saying that iHeart, like Pandora, is predominantly a curation tool. Rather than giving consumers access to a broad library of songs that they can pick and choose from, iHeart curates for users. Other music streaming services like Spotify, Rdio, Tidal, and now Apple Music have made curation a feature of their main music library service.

But iHeart’s argument is it has access to more curators, because it leverages content from a network of 850 radio stations. However, more is not always better. Some may argue that Apple has access to better curators and musical content by virtue of its Beats Music acquisition and its recent hire of U.K.-based DJ Zane Lowe.

Apple also has the advantage of being the purveyor of popular devices that Apple Music can live on, easily putting the new streaming service in front of millions of listeners. If iHeart is betting on curation as the key to listeners’ hearts, it may depend on growing corporate partnerships like the one with Virgin to get its curated playlists in more places where listeners are.