News surfaced recently that Zane Lowe would be leaving BBC Radio 1 to take a position with Apple. The announcement came as a surprise to fans, and even Lowe himself sounded a little unsure of the move in a recent interview with The Guardian. The host joined the BBC in 2003 to take over the evening show and his tenure will come to an end next month. He is reportedly joining Apple to work on the company's new radio service.
"It's not easy being faced with the prospect of leaving somewhere as amazing as the BBC," he said. "It's about the best place I've ever worked in my life. And it's got the most inspiring people, who do things for all the right reasons -- because they love it, they feel proud to do it there, they feel honoured at the privilege of being able to do it for the people, and they take that responsibility very seriously. And you don't leave. You just don't."
So why leave then? Lowe explained that he is excited at the prospect of reaching a bigger audience. His job, he added, has always been to connect the listener and the artist, so his decision has nothing to do with ego.
"It's about being able to get great music to an audience on a global level. I know that there is an opportunity to come out here and to build something that will reach parts of the world that I've never reached before," he said.
Lowe goes on to explain that he wants a new platform for huge music lovers while bringing back a human aspect that's been absent since the decline of record stores. It sounds like he'll have plenty of ideas when he gets to Apple. And the tech company will have its work cut out for it, too.
