Pandora founder Tim Westergren said in an interview at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, that Pandora had not only more than doubed its revenue in 2009, but turned in a black balance sheet for the first time in its 10-year history during the fourth quarter.
Pandora has signed deals with both Pioneer and Ford Motor Co., to ensure their service will be placed into thousands of car dashboards over the coming year, “Maybe a year ago people would have said Pandora is a computer thing,” said Westergren. “Now they’re beginning to realize that Internet radio is an anytime, anywhere thing.” This news is bound to be good for Pandora’s bottom line, but mobile internet will be another thorn in the side of satellite radio providers like Sirius, who are already under fire from the NASDAQ to get their stock price above $1.
It has been reported yesterday that Pandora has secured a new round of funding. If you are not aware what Pandora is, its a personalised online radio service. Pandora lets users choose which artists they like and then suggests new artists to them with the hope that they will also like their music. Pandora currently is based in the USA and is only for USA users, which is why most people here in the UK and outside the USA havent heard that much about Pandora.
However, within the next few months we hope to offer a new option to only a select few of RouteNote users, which is going to allow them to get their music onto the Pandora service and help promote their music in the USA. The downside is that only USA artists who are signed up to ASCAP and BMI can receive royalties for their streams. However, here at RouteNote we still believe this is a great opportunity for our artists to gain a lot more exposure in the USA, plus Pandora provide one of the leading iPhone applications which links in very nicely with iTunes, so if users enjoy your music they can purchase straight away. In the future we hope to have a more all round deal with Pandora but this is going to be very difficult until they launch in other markets outside of the USA.
Pandora is a music startup that he been getting a lot of great reviews of late. Pandora will reach profitability in 2010 according to founder Tim Westergren. Revenue is expected to double this year to $40 million thanks to targeted ads delivered to 27 million registered users which are growing at the rate of 50,000 to 60,000.
With the iPhone app release for Pandora they have been seeing a third of their growth come in this area. “It’s changed the perception people have of what Internet radio is, from computer-radio to radio, because you can take the iPhone and just plug it into your car, or take it to the gym.”
The yesterday Pandora also announced their new Pandora One service, which is just Pandora a few added features and of course no ads. Pandora One is a subscription based service in which is only $36 a year. Additionally with Pandora One they have released a desktop application which includes high quality streaming, a personalized look, a mini player and extended player timeouts
VS
In what may prove a revolutionary move, YouTube is refusing to pay the increased licensing fee that the MCPS/PRS alliance has demanded for the right to stream music videos for signed artists in the UK.
Music licensing can be a knotty problem; while most of the copyrights necessary to permit streaming for tracks belong to the record labels that have direct agreements with YouTube, there are other authorship rights that artists and songwriters can retain, or assign to be protected by the MCPS/PRS, which will attempt to collect revenues on their behalf whenever a song is played.
The previous licence that YouTube had negotiated with the PRS has expired, and the asking price for a new one is larger by many multiples. On top of this, the PRS has declined to specify what rights and what songs are actually covered by the agreement they’re offering to sell YT. In effect the PRS is demanding to be paid for a mystery box, which may or may not contain anything that YouTube actually needs.
The PRS have a different take on this, of course. They claim to be outraged on behalf of both artists and consumers that Google/YouTube have taken the drastic step of shutting down official access to music videos in the UK. Personally I find this quite unbelievable, since all they would need to do to permit the consumers to see these videos is set out exactly what rights they’re selling, and agree a reasonable price, rather than pulling a number out of the air, for an undisclosed package of rights and expecting it to be paid without question.
As we ponder all this, let’s think back to Jan 2008, when the MCPS/PRS forced Pandora, an online radio site that is nothing to do with Microsoft, to shut down UK operation. Pandora said they couldn’t operate sustainably if they had to pay the fees demanded of them. Do these sound like instances of the PRS looking after the rights of consumers and the artists they represent, or is it more like the stifling of new technologies and ways of consuming music, and why can’t the PRS specify what they’re actually bringing to the table in a deal this important?
What is sure is that while the content that’s being wrangled over is unavailable through more legitimate channels, the consumers will be looking elsewhere for their entertainment, to sites like the Pirate Bay to direct them to torrents that generate zero revenue for the artists concerned.
A lot of people are losing revenue and losing their jobs as the whole geography of the music industry, and the entertainment industry at large is gripped in the seismic change the internet is facilitating, and you can’t blame groups like the PRS and the big labels for trying to retain control. This said, perhaps stifling new channels like YouTube and Pandora is cutting off their nose to spite their face, and they would be better off supporting innovation, and creating new ways to generate revenue and help people enjoy the great music that their artists are creating.
Loading ...
