Jimmy Iovine strongly denied reports that he's planning to leave Apple Music back in January, saying in a statement that he was "committed" to doing whatever Tim Cook and company needed him to do. "I am in the band," he said at the time. Wednesday, a Wall Street Journal report added a new layer to the Iovine rumors. According to their sources, Iovine is set to move to a "consulting role" in August.
Why August, though? According to the Journal, the alleged transition from Irvine's daily involvement with Apple Music is timed to the full vesting of shares Iovine will get due to Apple's previous acquisition of Beats.
Iovine has reportedly told multiple people close to him that he's gearing up to spend more downtime with his family while assisting Apple's Senior VP Eddy Cue in a consulting capacity, though Iovine has neither confirmed or denied this. The Interscope Records co-founder was part of Apple’s $3 billion Beats deal in 2014, which also included Trent Reznor and Dr. Dre.
In a 2014 interview with Billboard, Reznor sounded downright stoked about the prospects of the deal. "It's exciting to me, and I think it could have a big enough impact that it's worth the effort," he said at the time. "I'm fully in it right now, and it's challenging, and it's unfamiliar and it's kind of everything I asked for—and the bad thing is it's everything I asked for."
However, according to the Journal's new report, Reznor and others have since "left or distanced themselves" from Beats and Apple.
Iovine spoke with Complex back in December about the must-watch Defiant Ones documentary, predicting a "squeeze" was coming for the streaming industry at large. "It's not really trickling down in the right way," he said. "And I think with of the scale of this thing, it will. The labels are on board, everyone's on board. No ones doing anything wrong—at least I don't think so, not that I know of. But I think that the business has to get better, because I see a squeeze comin.'"
