Pandora announced today that it’s acquiring Rdio for $75 million with plans to integrate the competitive music streaming service’s technology into its own service pending the usual government approvals.
In addition to acquiring technology and intellectual property from Rdio, many members of Rdio’s team will be offered roles with Pandora, subject to close of the agreement. The company expects to offer an expanded Pandora listening experience by late 2016
Pandora isn’t planning on continuing the Rdio service or even purchasing the company itself, but rather buying Rdio’s technology and some of its talent as Rdio goes bankrupt and begins to shut down its service.
What exactly this means for Rdio customers, which offers unlimited music streaming across platforms with both paid and free ad-supported memberships, remains to be seen. One feature that Pandora executives mentioned will likely come as a result of the acquisition is an expansion of subscription options including a new “on-demand paid subscription”.
Pandora currently offers a radio-style streaming experience with an ad-free, monthly paid subscription, while Rdio has a free ad-supported tier and two paid subscriptions that remove ads, song skip limits, and add on-demand content, downloads and other features.
It’s likely Pandora will attempt to transition Rdio listeners over as the service shuts down and it implements the technology, but it will also be a key opportunity for Apple to pick up new subscribers from Rdio users that might not be interested in Pandora’s offering.
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> “It’s likely Pandora will attempt to transition Rdio listeners over as the service shuts down and it implements the technology, but it will also be a key opportunity for Apple to pick up new subscribers from Rdio users that might not be interested in Pandora’s offering.”
I don’t use Rdio so this doesn’t concern me but doesn’t Rdio have a presence outside of the US? Pandora has always been geoblocked to the United States (and possibly other countries?) due to licensing. If Pandora doesn’t expand outside of the US they’ll lose a lot of potential customers.
Rdio 75Million…..Beats 600 Billion, or something like that…..I know, I know Apple didnt over pay at all
@chrisl84: You should compare the details and not the bare prices. Apple paid that much, because there was the hardware business too, and a whole lot more patents involved. Beats Electronics licensed technology to vendors of laptops like HP for example. And we don’t know for sure, if Beats Music had more customers than Rdio brings into the equation. Then again, Pandora buys only “assets”, not people, nor buildings which have their own value, nor the business at all. Apple bought Beats and all revenue from both hardware and streaming went straight to Apple. This is not the case with Pandora. That’s why Rdio goes bankrupt.
Yeah Yeah Yeah, Beats was a steal I know, LOL
Great now I have to switch back to LimeWire
I pay for both Apple Music and Pandora and find myself using Pandora much more, something I never thought would be the case. Apple Music’s integration with ITunes Match is a disaster. Don’t know why I really need to pay for both.
As a devoted Rdio user since 2011, I am heartbroken! The service is simply superb. Planning to check out Play Music and see how it compares. If Pandora could maintain or transition accounts I would stay with them, but they aren’t going to. I plan to spend the next couple months trying to replicate my collection and playlists to Google Play. But I am SO unhappy!!