Rdio Will File For Bankruptcy, Sell Smoldering Remains To Pandora

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RIP, Rdio: the music streaming service tried its best to compete with bigger streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music. After the company files for bankruptcy, though, competitor Pandora has offered $75 million in cash for its intellectual property and some employees. What about the customers? They could come along as part of a separate transaction.

Rdio tried to survive with multiple competitors, including Apple Music, which had a similar price point but was already installed on hundreds of millions of phones. Rdio’s advantage has been that it operated in more countries than competitors, notably the massive developing market of India. The company tried offering lower-cost plans everywhere, but wasn’t able to recover and capture market share.

Rdio has assets that Pandora doesn’t. It’s an on-demand streaming service where customers choose what they want to listen to or pick a curated playlist; Pandora’s main service plays random-seeming songs based on the songs that you’ve liked in the past.

When Rdio declares bankruptcy, Pandora has agreed to bid $75 million in cash for some of its assets. Presumably, the company wants Rdio’s technology so they can offer an on-demand service and sell subscriptions to people who want to play non-random music sometimes. Maybe they simply want to buy up Rdio’s intellectual property and hire key employees so the big streaming companies can’t.

Rdio is shutting down and Pandora is buying up the scraps [The Verge]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist