Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,279
30,340



jimmy-iovine-crop-324x285.jpg
Apple is rumored to be purchasing Beats Electronics, with an announcement of the acquisition coming at any moment. The deal is said to include the company's headphone business, its Beats Music subscription service, and two key executives -- Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, aka Andre Young.

Several reports have suggested that Apple's major motivation behind the purchase might be the acquihire of Jimmy Iovine, who has strong ties to the music industry thanks to his role as chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M and founder of Interscope Records.

Walter Isaacson, the man behind the famous Steve Jobs biography, is also speculating that Iovine is one of the main reasons Apple has decided to purchase Beats. In a discussion with Billboard, Isaacson suggested Cook is aiming to have Iovine head up the company's content business, securing music and TV deals that will help Apple launch its much-rumored television product.
Isaacson thinks the Apple-Beats deal is not about headphones or streaming music but rather is about video. He speculates that Cook wants Iovine to run Apple's content business and help Apple launch the TV product that analysts have been gossiping about for years. The product has been held up because Apple can't get all the content owners on board.
Iovine has a long history of working with Apple to help the company sign key deals. In 2002, he helped Steve Jobs secure deals with music labels for the iTunes Store and in 2004, he helped persuade U2 to sign a deal with Apple to create the popular U2 special edition iPod.

Looking back at notes he took when writing the Jobs biography, Isaacson noted that Iovine had wanted Apple to acquire Universal Music Group back in 2003, and during that year, there were rumors suggesting Apple was in talks to buy the record company. At the time, Iovine was leading Interscope Geffen A&M, a division of Universal.

For years now, Apple has been working on signing deals with major content providers with the aim of revolutionizing the television industry, but content providers have been reluctant to commit to an agreement that could interrupt traditional revenue streams. Iovine's many connections in the music industry and his history of helping Apple win key deals could be instrumental in a wider content role with the company.
Maybe Iovine has the charisma and connections to round up the networks the way he did the music labels in 2002, although "it's a lot more complicated" this time around, says Isaacson. His track record of success in marrying content and tech gives that theory some weight.
Recent rumors have suggested that both Iovine and Dr. Dre could make their first appearances as Apple executives during the company's Worldwide Developers Conference, set to kick off on June 2.

Article Link: Jobs Biographer Walter Isaacson Suggests Key TV Content Role for Beats' Jimmy Iovine
 

proline

macrumors 6502a
Nov 18, 2012
630
1
For someone with intimate access to Steve Jobs, it never ceases to amaze me how little insight Isaacson has into Apple.
 

Tanegashima

macrumors 6502
Jun 23, 2009
473
0
Portugal
For someone with intimate access to Steve Jobs, it never ceases to amaze me how little insight Isaacson has into Apple.

True that!

Now this rumor has a week already into it and there isn't any confirmation to both parties.

What the hell is Isaacson commenting about it?

If he wasn't already dead for my hears already, he would die right now.

How much money does he make for making that comment? I wonder...
 

iamkarlp

macrumors regular
Oct 15, 2008
102
0
TV Deals. Like the ATT/DirecTV thing, or bringing the MTV channel?

The key to making a 40B$ TV deal work for ATT will be for them to aggressively protect, maintain, and grow the status quo.

By that I mean the general concept of 75~200$/mo packages which give you a firehose of content of highly varying quality further shored up by aggressive advertising sales.

While there is no doubt that they will do a lot of work to make it more digital era-friendly, the general quality/price ratio needs to stay constant or even increase on the price side for the numbers to make sense. Additionally, I suspect they will need to be able to turn the current general TV advertising industry into one which is highly targeted based on your digital profiles in order to actually turn a profit.


On the other hand, a 2 or 3 billion dollar payment from Apple for a negotiator with a reasonable chance at breaking that status quo isn't remotely out of the question.

While this is simply yet another rumor, its the one which makes the most sense to date.

Headphones are just a side-business, the music service is icing on the cake.

Karl P
 
Last edited:

DipDog3

macrumors 65816
Sep 20, 2002
1,191
812
That is one expensive acquihire. Even Steve Jobs didn't cost that much.
 

Robin4

macrumors 6502
Feb 6, 2010
355
26
RTD-NC
With Comcast buying Time Warner. AT&T buying Direct TV, Apple might be running out of options and getting too late to the dance.

I hope they have something REALLY interesting, otherwise it will remain a hobby.
 

Z400Racer37

macrumors 6502a
Feb 7, 2011
711
1,664
All the content on TV sucks anyways... I don't understand for the life of me why they don't just do a version of YouTube that doesn't totally suck, integrate it into their content creation software, and let people put out the awesome content themselves.

Major news networks are all losing ratings, and it's because they produce garbage. The stuff on YouTube is way more intelligent, and the producers aren't worried about advertising revenue, so you're not plagued with commercials every 5 dang minutes, and you can actually engage in a deep and intelligent conversation with people, unlike on the major networks, where your thoughts need to be reduced to 5 second spats, and any disagreement goes largely unsettled.

I haven't watched TV in months. I don't miss it one bit. And I'm pretty tired of the excuses for why they can't launch this TV yet... C'mon Apple...
 

polterbyte

macrumors 6502
Sep 24, 2012
353
538
Brazil
Someone's gotta tell Isaacson that writing a biography on Jobs doesn't automatically make one an expert on all things Apple.

Please, Walter, just stop.
 

blucrew100

macrumors newbie
Apr 9, 2014
14
0
interesting…. but why not just purchase netflix…..

----------

Someone's gotta tell Isaacson that writing a biography on Jobs doesn't automatically make one an expert on all things Apple.

Please, Walter, just stop.

Neither does reading a blog or being a fan of apple. Should give the guy who spent a large amount of time talking with Steve Jobs a little credit.
 

xtwentyseven

macrumors member
Apr 26, 2008
72
25
Dallas, TX
All the content on TV sucks anyways... I don't understand for the life of me why they don't just do a version of YouTube that doesn't totally suck, integrate it into their content creation software, and let people put out the awesome content themselves.

Major news networks are all losing ratings, and it's because they produce garbage. The stuff on YouTube is way more intelligent, and the producers aren't worried about advertising revenue, so you're not plagued with commercials every 5 dang minutes, and you can actually engage in a deep and intelligent conversation with people, unlike on the major networks, where your thoughts need to be reduced to 5 second spats, and any disagreement goes largely unsettled.

I haven't watched TV in months. I don't miss it one bit. And I'm pretty tired of the excuses for why they can't launch this TV yet... C'mon Apple...

This is crazy. There is a whole lot of crap on YouTube and a lot of it has ads for even just a short clip.
 

Julien

macrumors G4
Jun 30, 2007
11,835
5,430
Atlanta
$3,200,000,000 just for a hiring bonus. :D Like so many others Isaacson is looking at a small slice of the pie. For $3.2 billion Apple is looking at the entire package value.
 

bbbb4b

macrumors 6502
May 15, 2011
266
203
interesting…. but why not just purchase netflix….

Because Netflix is way, way, way, overvalued; and sucks.

Apple is great at buying things that suck, and then turning them into something great. But they won't overpay for it.
(well… unless you consider their latest deal to be… uh... Oh, never mind)
 

Z400Racer37

macrumors 6502a
Feb 7, 2011
711
1,664
This is crazy. There is a whole lot of crap on YouTube and a lot of it has ads for even just a short clip.

If you want to watch crap, then you can. Or you can watch the opposite. Which I do. You're going to tell me that I don't, and haven't been for the last 6 months?
 

polterbyte

macrumors 6502
Sep 24, 2012
353
538
Brazil
Neither does reading a blog or being a fan of apple. Should give the guy who spent a large amount of time talking with Steve Jobs a little credit.

I agree, and I don't. But it doesn't take an expert to see that Isaacson not only has misread what Jobs said to him on several passages of his book, but also tries to use his clout to "guide" Apple. You are also right: we should give him a little credit. Not a lot, as he seems to demand these days.
 

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
9,544
6,042
Looking back at notes he took when writing the Jobs biography, Isaacson noted that Iovine had wanted Apple to acquire Universal Music Group back in 2003, and during that year, there were rumors suggesting Apple was in talks to buy the record company.

Interesting - I never realized that almost happened. I imagine Apple Inc. would have ended up with a lot of legal troubles with Apple Corp. if they'd done that - more so than they had just by entering the music business.
 

Macist

macrumors 6502a
Mar 13, 2009
783
458
Aside from the odd high-budget drama or documentary, 99.9% of TV is inane drivel. Random people can now put their own inane drivel on YouTube so what is TV for?
 

Sy7ygy

Suspended
Nov 16, 2012
343
168
Apple are becoming lost to me... Beats? I've had a few of their products; OK mostly - the Pro's were nice. Read the story on what they did to Monster though - wouldn't want Dr.NeedstheD & Jimmeh Iovine involved with Apple!
 
Last edited by a moderator:

drumpat01

macrumors 6502
Jul 31, 2004
444
115
Denton, TX
Who the hell cares about this guy anymore? Why are people still interviewing him like he is some expert on Apple? He wasn't even an expert on Steve Jobs and he had years to get to know him! Every time Isaacson's name comes up in relation to Apple I just shake my head and think, "how long is he going to keep cashing in on another man's tragedy?"
 

calaverasgrande

macrumors 65816
Oct 18, 2010
1,291
161
Brooklyn, New York.
idiotic, Aplpe is out of touch in terms of music genres because it is run by baby boomers and a few gen x-ers.
People with their tastes stuck in the 60's and 80's respectively.
So Dre and Iovine will do what, bring them up to the early 90's?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.