As part of the $3.2 billion deal to acquire Beats, legendary music executive Jimmy Iovine is expected to join Apple in a “creative role.” The deal is essentially the biggest music
View this image " Jimmy Iovine Via beatsmusic.com Apple isn’t buying Beats Entertainment for $3.2 billion - what it is really doing is acqui-hiring Jimmy Iovine. According to a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations, Iovine would leave Universal Music Group, his record label home for more than two decades, to join Apple in an undefined “creative role” as part of a deal for Beats. Iovine, who along with rapper Dr. Dre founded Beats in 2008, is currently the chairman of Universal’s Interscope/Geffen/A&M labels. He is among the most powerful and colorful personalities in the industry, frequently seen in vacation pictures on the Twitter feed of fellow music mogul Irving Azoff. In recent years, Iovine, a lanky figure who often sports a baseball cap, has decreased his involvement at the labels he oversees in favor of more entrepreneurial activities. He was one of the first industry executives to anticipate the download business’s decline and advocate for subscription and streaming services as music’s future. While Apple has been talking up iTunes in recent earnings calls, in the last one saying that it had brought in $2.6 billion in revenue in the first quarter this year, up 93A2Fonline.wsj.com2FSB10001424052702304431104579550392146532138.html">Jobs sometimes stayed at Iovine’s house when visiting Los Angeles, and Iovine is the one who led the deal for Universal to create a U2-branded iPod. industry acqui-hire.
View this image " Reuters / Reuters On the surface, Iovine’s departure seems like a big loss for Universal Music. But the reality is that he has been taking baby steps away from the industry for years, co-producing Eminem’s feature film debut, 8 Mile and the LeBron James documentary More Than a Game, for instance. And after Lucian Grainge took over for Doug Morris as Universal Music’s CEO in 2011, he adopted an unspoken policy of letting Iovine function as a sort of in-house entrepreneur for the label. Grainge even laid the succession plan groundwork with the October 2012 hiring of John Janick from Warner Music’s Fueled by Ramen label to be Interscope’s president and chief operating officer. Janick, who relocated to California to work as Iovine’s top lieutenant, said at the time of his
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hiring that, “I’ve been entrusted to help build this company for the future. It’s fantastic to be joining a company that has been built on such exciting artists and music; that’s something I intend on continuing.” Now, it appears as though he will officially get his chance - and his label, not to mention the music industry writ large, will finally have in Iovine an ally inside Apple, whose music operations it appears as if he will soon be running. 7. LINK Universal Has A Big Stake In Beats That's Worth Nearly $500 Million buzzfeed.com 8. LINK Apple Reportedly In Talks To Buy Beats By Dre For $3.2 Billion buzzfeed.com Read more: http://buzzfeed.com/peterlauria/apples-beats-deal-is-all-about-bringing-musicmogul-jimmy-io Apple's Beats Deal Is All About Bringing Music Mogul Jimmy Iovine On Board
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