APPLE AFTER JIMMY: WHO'S THE CAPTAIN?

The Wall Street Journal is the latest to report what we told you just after we recovered from our New Year’s Eve hangover: Jimmy Iovine will leave Apple in August. The paper looks further into the possible leadership of Apple Music.

Robert Kondrk, who oversees the business of Apple Music and iTunes, and Jeff Robbin, who oversees the product and engineering teams, are the two currently running Apple Music’s operations. Both have been at the helm under Iovine for more than two years.

The question The Journal poses is whether Apple Music needs a familiar face from the record industry to maintain and develop relationships with artists, managers and others. It will be Eddy Cue’s decision whether Apple Music can sustain itself with Kondrk and Robbin or whether one needs to take a lead role or an Iovine-like figure needs to be installed at the top.

Apple’s music business has been gaining momentum and according to WSJ, it's poised to overtake rival Spotify this year in U.S. paid subscribers. That is mostly because of Apple Music’s reach across many of Apple’s 1.3 billion devices worldwide—on which its app is included by default—rather than the exclusive content agreements delivered through Iovine’s close relationships with artists, according to music industry executives.

Iovine joined Apple after the Cuppertino crew acquired Beats. Apple has launched its own audio products in addition to the Iovine/Dr. Dre headphones/speakers and continues to dominate the market, especially in the blue tooth-driven arena: in terms of dollar amounts, Beats/Apple were taking 49% of all dollars spent on wireless headphones in 2016, according to NPD’s Retail Tracking Service.

Cue and the streaming side of Apple have been pumping significant cash into the original video content side, the initial offerings of which had shown lackluster results. As Apple Music has thrived with hip-hop, might someone from that world be a prime candidate? Stay tuned.