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SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

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Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#91

Post by traek »

cirnine wrote: post #61
rubicon33 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a business noob, I've got to ask - How exactly does a company that makes nothing in 18 years, get acquired for 3.5 billion?

Pandora brought in $1.4 billion in revenue in 2017, and will have even more revenue in 2018. Of course, licensing rates means that the company only gets to see a few hundred million of that, and a significant portion of that needs to go to advertising sales personnel -- audio advertising is incredibly hands-on compared to other forms of internet advertising. As an aside: it was interesting when the stock cratered las…

> As an aside: it was interesting when the stock cratered last year to the point where the market cap of the company was lower than its annual revenue -- all the revenue in the world doesn't make up for negative margins.

Yup, revenue doesn’t really mean anything; Walmart’s market cap is less than their 2017 revenue.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#92

Post by praneshp »

sf_rob wrote: post #40
cptskippy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After buying an XM enabled car from a dealership, I was extremely disappointed when I started receiving weekly mailings and phone calls from them as my "trial" was expiring. I am still pissed off about the lengths I had to go to in order to stop receiving communications from them. They refused to remove my contact information from their system and could not promise I wouldn't be contacted again in the future. I had t…

Sirius and Onstar are two of the worst things about my car purchase. I wonder the degree to which these partnerships hurt these car brands for short term profit. Things I want in an OEM receiver: 1) Carplay/Android Auto, 2) Software updates for 1, 3) Radio, 4) To never do anything else ( call me, install bloatware apps, reorder menus, etc).

> Sirius and Onstar are two of the worst things about my car purchase

I'd say your car purchase was an awesome experience.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#93

Post by rconti »

Thrymr wrote: post #50
jbob2000 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SiriusXM is dying, if not already dead. Why do I need satellite radio when I can just listen to a podcast, or preload a bunch of music on my phone? Or just stream? 10 years ago, you could still do these things, but it was harder or very expensive. Now, you just open an app on your unlimited data phone, plug in the aux cable, and start driving. So this purchase is about Sirius re-entering the market. I think they'll p…

> Why do I need satellite radio when I can just listen to a podcast, or preload a bunch of music on my phone? Anyone who is away from a good data connection for a significant amount of time. E.g. long haul truckers, rural areas (especially in the western US), mountainous regions. If most of your car time is commuting in the city/suburbs, that may not be an issue.

My spotify playlists download to my phone

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#94

Post by adrianmonk »

honkycat wrote: post #90

I never liked algorithmic DJs. They don't really expand my horizons and play the same crap over and over. My favorite is chirpradio dot org. Real DJs who are real music buffs.

Thank you. I thought I was the only one who got tired of algorithms noticing I'm listing to some classic rock and deciding a great move would be to introduce me to this band I may have never heard of called The Eagles.

I've noticed that YouTube (just plain YouTube, not the new YouTube Music) is actually decent at recommending music though. I played some songs by The Meters and Herbie Hancock, and through its recommendations I learned about the existence of Lafayette Afro Rock Band and learned that Prince made a funk/fusion album in 1977 before his pop stuff. I wonder if it's just using its regular video recommendation algorithm and not anything music specific, which might be a different approach than the music services.

EDIT: And by really strange coincidence, I just checked out Chirp, and the last song they played was by The Meters, and before that they played another band (Cymande) that YouTube recommended in the same session.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#95

Post by stubish »

freehunter wrote: post #72
MrEfficiency wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radio was cool but they repeated songs too much. The thumbs up and down would ruin the radio algorithm. I would thumbs down live versions or comedy skits, then it would skew the entire system. This was years ago.

Yeah last time I used Pandora, every station would inevitably turn into "freehunter's favorite songs". Rap station? Well Run-DMC did a cover of Walk This Way, and Linkin Park is kind of rap and Beastie Boys did a lot of rock songs, and now suddenly I'm getting a lot of rock in my rap list, and rock melds into pop pretty easy, and now suddenly my rap playlist has Katy Perry and Kesha. And thumbs down is always way too…

While I haven't used Pandora (it isn't available here), you seem to be describing my experience with Spotify's various playlists. With no personal context or ranking, the algorithms have nothing to go on except how many other people liked or repeated a song. Other people have awful taste, and seem to love to put songs on high rotation that I find mediocre.

And without decent playlists and music discovery, why would you pay a monthly subscription instead of once-off fees for music you like?

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#96

Post by lazyjones »

rubicon33 wrote: post #55
treis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Poor Pandora and their investors. This is for about a quarter of what they were worth just 4 years ago. They also got 3.5 billion for a company that hasn't made any money in its 18 year existence so it's hard to feel too bad.

Being a business noob, I've got to ask - How exactly does a company that makes nothing in 18 years, get acquired for 3.5 billion?

It takes a competing company that is actually (very) profitable and believes it can successfully monetize the 70 million users Pandora claims to have.

My gut feeling is that this will be one of countless such acquisitions that‘ll turn out to be bad for both users and the acquiring company in the next couple of years. There‘s a reason why Pandora isn’t profitable in a market where others make 100‘s of millions in profit every year.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#97

Post by CamperBob2 »

chrisbro wrote: post #75
thehashrocket wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this way about Sirius/XM. It was such a hassle to deal with them every 6 months or a year to get a better rate when it came up for renewal. It just didn't feel like it was worth it anymore. And once I finally left they would snail mail me offers to come back constantly. I couldn't help but think that all that money spent mailing me to come back could have been spent just providing a more affordable service in…

I was about to say, if naggy and poor customer service is a hallmark of Pandora, then becoming a part of SiriusXM will be a match made in heaven (hell?). When I finally decided to drop SiriusXM and called in to cancel my account, it took me something like 20 minutes worth of begging the phone rep to just never let me have to pay their company money ever again. They spent the entire time questioning how I used the ser…

Just tell them you've been sentenced to prison, or are dying, or something like that.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#98

Post by josefresco »

freehunter wrote: post #74
josefresco wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*Multiple cars. High tech, low tech doesn't matter - it's a shit show. You know what still works? FM radio.

You must have a great local radio market, then. I wouldn't consider any of my local FM stations to be "working" radio.

It actually rebounded (post Internet era) and exploded locally (I live 1.5 hours from Boston). I listen to NPR, a top 40 station when the kids are in the car, and there's a local rock station that's just as good as any SiriusXM channel (the kids aren't wild about that one). More commercials sure, but sometimes you luck out and your 5-10 min car ride has tunes the whole time.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#99

Post by josefresco »

superkuh wrote: post #83
davemp wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having your service pre-download stations/playlists when on wifi helps with this.

Actually owning your music and storing it on your devices in open formats helps even more.

Hard with a 16 (actually 14) GB iPhone. I deleted my iOS music library (to free up space) and only stream now. Even with the LTE issues, it's (streaming) better than listening to the same couple dozen songs and dealing with iTunes.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#100

Post by mcny »

traek wrote: post #91
cirnine wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pandora brought in $1.4 billion in revenue in 2017, and will have even more revenue in 2018. Of course, licensing rates means that the company only gets to see a few hundred million of that, and a significant portion of that needs to go to advertising sales personnel -- audio advertising is incredibly hands-on compared to other forms of internet advertising. As an aside: it was interesting when the stock cratered las…

> As an aside: it was interesting when the stock cratered last year to the point where the market cap of the company was lower than its annual revenue -- all the revenue in the world doesn't make up for negative margins. Yup, revenue doesn’t really mean anything; Walmart’s market cap is less than their 2017 revenue.

People always yell at me when I say this but what if we lower corporate tax rate and tax revenue instead of profits? Does it encourage companies to get even bigger and do everything in house?
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