Beats CEO Jimmy Iovine Tried to Sell Music Subscriptions to Steve Jobs

AllThingsD reports on an interview with Beats headphones CEO Jimmy Iovine and how the latter once tried to sell Steve Jobs on music subscriptions, but ultimately was unsuccessful, even after three years of pursuing the matter. Universal Music head Doug Morris told Iovine to talk to Jobs:

In 2002, 2003, Doug asked me to go up to Apple and see Steve. So I met him and we hit it off right away. We were really close. We did some great marketing stuff together: 50 Cent, Bono, Jagger, stuff for the iPod — we did a lot of stuff together.

But I was always trying to push Steve into subscription. And he wasn’t keen on it right away. [Beats co-founder] Luke Wood and I spent about three years trying to talk him into it. He was there, not there … he didn’t want to pay the record companies enough. He felt that they would come down, eventually.

I don’t know what [Apple media head] Eddy Cue would say — I’m seeing him soon — but I think in the end Steve was feeling it, but the economics …he wanted to pay the labels [for subscriptions], but [the fees were] not going to be acceptable to them.

Apple has been rumoured to launch an ‘iRadio’ streaming music service similar to Pandora, and if anyone is going to get a deal done, Cue talking with Iovine and his connections could definitely help get something up and running.

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