Even though it was one of the first music streaming services in the world, and dominated the market for a while, Pandora has been losing a lot of ground to newer services like Spotify, mainly due to the fact that users can’t actually choose which songs they listen to on Pandora. Fortunately, a Spotify competitor by the name of Rdio just went bankrupt, and Pandora was more than happy to acquire its remaining assets for around $75 million, which it’ll use to release its own on-demand music streaming services sometime next year.
Pandora, the long-standing online music service increasingly squeezed by newer competitors like Spotify and Apple Music, just made a move to reclaim its place in the music streaming game. The company announced this afternoon (Nov. 16)—hours after rumors first emerged—that it is acquiring on-demand music service Rdio for $75 million. Rdio will shut down its service and file for bankruptcy, and Pandora will offer Rdio’s on-demand streaming platform (which lets users instantly pick what songs they want to hear) alongside its radio-style service (which plays program-selected music based on genres, or “stations”). If all goes according to plan, Pandora’s listeners will be able to access the new feature—or what company executives call an “expanded Pandora experience”—in late 2016. Up until now, the service has championed its radio-centered user experience as wholly unique from the other streaming services out there. But the deal fills a real need considering that Pandora saw its stock sink 40% in one day after investors got spooked over the sudden success of Apple Music, and that it currently only offers a passive listening experience, while many others—including Apple Music and Spotify—offer both.
