The most popular streaming services, Pandora and Spotify, have unsustainable business models. If these two pioneering giants can't survive in the long run, what chance does any other service have? Maybe music possession isn't as quaintly 20th Century as pundits would have you believe.
Pandora, which had its IPO in 2011, has never been profitable. Its revenues are growing steadily, but so are its losses. For the quarter ending July 30, 2012 revenue was up more than 50% year-to-year to $101.3M, but its quarterly losses of $5.4M were 3x last year's. According to filings in Spotify's home country of Luxembourg, the company lost $57M on $236M in revenue for fiscal year 2011. The red ink cannot continue indefinitely.
"Cost of sales" is the highest contributing factor to the sustained losses. Pandora operates as a limited-play radio service and does not have to negotiate royalty deals with individual labels. Still, last year the company paid 54% of its revenue out in royalites under the provision of federal copyright law that lets it use (almost) any song. Spotify operates as an unlimited on-demand music service and negotiates directly with labels and publishers for the songs it makes available, paying a staggering 97% of its revenue on licensing fees and distribution costs. (Source: NY Times.)
To climb out of its hole, Pandora is lobbying Congress for a copyright license deal more aligned with satellite radio and cable outlets, the so-called Internet Radio Fairness Act. The licensing rate for satellite is set at 7.5% of gross revenue. Cable music services pay 15% of gross revenue. On the other hand, Pandora pays 2 cents per hour for the more than one billion streaming-hours it runs per month. (Source: LA Times.) Music publishers, becoming more dependent on revenue from streaming as CD sales continue their decline, oppose any change. Additionally, statutory licensing is unique to the USA; overseas growth for Pandora will be hard to achieve without similar license deals in other countries.
To reverse its current fortunes, Spotify faces the daunting task of trying to make monopoly economics work. If the EMI sale closes, there will only be only three major music labels. As explained by Michael Robertson of MP3tunes.com, the jaw-dropping secret licensing demands of record label monopolies would not be tolerated in any other industry as they "crush innovation, as well as any hope of profitiability." Since failure to reach a deal with any of the labels would put a huge hole in Spotify's catalog, the company really has no choice but to concede to industry demands.
Listeners have embraced streaming audio services in the cloud. At least 33 million people have tried Spotify, more than 150 million have registered for Pandora. But maybe now is not the time to abandon music possession completely in favor of streaming; the current cost structure of the industry is unsustainable. Are you prepared for the day when there is nothing but blue sky where your cloud used to be?
Artist: Willie NelsonGenre: Country
Year: 1978
Willie Nelson has never been one to do the safe or expected, and this Booker T. Jones-produced album of pop "standards" from the '30s and '40s certainly fits the profile. The success of Stardust paved the way for the late-career standards album of virtually any singer you can name. I had never heard more than a couple lines from Irving Berlin's cloud-free "Blue Skies" (via montage in the movie White Christmas) until picking up this album as my introduction to Mr. Nelson's work.
© 2012 Thomas G. Dennehy. All rights reserved.
