9-6-2012
Up until now Pandora has pretty much been on offense...and the radio industry has been its target. Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy has been clear that Pandora's goal is to disrupt radio and make buying ads on Pandora as easy as buying ads on the radio. Well, what happens when the largest company in the world decides to elbow into your space? We may soon find out. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple is talking to record labels to "license music for a custom radio service similar to Pandora and Spotify." Is Apple signaling it believes the future is in streaming music to consumers, not downloading for purchase?
It's important to note that the report says Apple is negotiating directly with labels. You may recall how everyone else is playing the royalty game, with fees being pre-determined by SoundExchange through 2015. Pandora's biggest challenge right now is that it pays out so much of its revenue to acquire content that it's struggling to become profitable.
The Journal report states that the service would be available on the iPhone, iPad, Macs, and Windows machines. The company is holding an event on September 12. Several new product announcements are expected to be made then. The Journal report also states that this new service could be up and running in a matter of months.
Pandora has 54.9 million active users. According to the Journal report, Apple says it has more than 400 million iTunes accounts.(9/7/2012 6:54:22 PM)
Terrestrial radio is dead because the FCC deregulated to the point of creating massive monopolies - from broadcast mega-giants who scarf up the competition so that almost all the nation's stations are owned and controlled by a handful of music hating power brokers, to the RIAA who refuses to allow anyone to even hear music unless they're willing to pay a week's salary for every song they listen to. It's absolutely ridiculous what the FCC has done to this country's freedoms. They're the ones who are responsible for this insanity.
(9/7/2012 1:15:03 PM)
Just another nail in the coffin of terrestrial radio. Listening to the crap that the big companies put on stations is embarassing. Hey big corporations.....pull your head out and make radio LOCAL again. Yeah, I know...wishful thinking... SIGH
(9/7/2012 11:49:01 AM)
Can Google Play be far behind?
(9/7/2012 11:20:36 AM)
Radio can't even appeal to the refs for a "piling on" penalty. And why should they? There are no rules that cover this circumstance.
But it gets worse, particularly when one considers that radio now goes into the game without players, without a game plan and without uniforms. Even the cheerleaders are uncoordinated and out of shape.
Gawd forbid when somebody introduces the forward pass to this mix.
As an only somewhat related comment: So, this is what happens with deregulation - unfettered, organized and formal incompetence while audience and client services are dropped to make room for profits. Short-term profits.....? (Thanks for the heads-up, Mitt.)
If you haven't already sold Pandora 35% below its IPO price it might be a good time to take your losses at current levels. The business model has never made sense and now this?
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