iHeart Media & Entertainment

by TALIA LEVY and VALERIE POWELL
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[16] iHeartMedia Company Logo

iHeartMedia, Inc
200 East Base Road
San Antonio, Texas

 

HISTORY
    iHeart Media was originally founded in San Antonio, Texas under the name Clear Channel Communications. The company was founded by Lowry Mays and B.J. McCombs in 1972. In 2008, the company became private by a leveraged buyout through Bain Capital, LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners.
    iHeartMedia has the widest reach in America for any radio or television outlet with an audience of over a quarter of a billion listeners each month. The company currently covers 150 of the U.S. markets with 858 broadcast radio stations. iHeartMedia delivers a variety of content including music, talk shows, news, and sports through broadcast stations, satellite, online, via smartphones and via live shows. iHeartRadio currently has 92 million registered users with a year-over-year growth of 22% with an increase of 8% in total listening hours. As of September 30th, cumulative upgrades and downloads have reached a new record of 1.1 billion [4].

 

KEY EXECUTIVES

Bob Pittman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Bob Pittman                         [12] Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

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Wendy Goldberg       [13] Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer

 

 

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William Eccleshare [15] Chairman and CEO, Clear Channel International

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Richard J. Dressler [14] President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer

 

 

 

FINIANCIAL 
    For the second quarter of 2016, iHeartMedia’s loss widened to $278.89 million due to billboard sales in Turkey that expanded the ongoing debt $56.6 million. The loss was more than five times the amount of 2015’s second quarter loss of $54.66 million [3]. Even though there was a large loss in the second quarter, the company is still generating revenue in the third quarter of 2016 for a total of $857.1 million. Due to a growth in network business and the Presidential Election, digital advertising and broadcast radio primarily drove the growth in revenue of $10.2 million (1.2%) from the previous year’s third quarter revenue [4].
    The increase in revenue allows iHeart to stay on top of their current debt of $20.78 billion as of June 30th, 2016. The large debt is mainly due to a buyout in 2008 by two Boston private-equity firms, allowing them to gain 70% of the iHeartMedia Company. Debtwire senior credit analyst, Seth Crystall, explains that iHeart is a “powerful brand” and will continue to increase revenue to make up from their current losses by the transformation of their listeners to their mobile app [3].
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[17] Singer Taylor Swift singing at the iHeartRadio Music Awards.

iHEART MUSIC FESTIVALS
    The iHeart Music Festival Tour is iHeartRadio’s biggest live musical event, generating a large income for the company, with a portion of the ticket profits going towards the Ryan Seacrest Foundation. iHeartMedia’s President of National Programming Group, Tom Poleman, says, “Fans wait all year to hear who will be playing this tour and we’re thrilled to announce an impressive lineup” [11]. The concerts are held in major cities throughout the country by the iHeartRadio stations in those areas. The Jingle Ball Tour is iHeartRadio’s biggest musical event, generating a large income for the company. The tour is sponsored by Capital One, which allows card holders to gain early access to tickets before going to the general public [7].
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[18] Bon Jovi Photographed performing at an iHeartRadio live concert.

    The live iHeart Radio concerts are a mutually beneficially event for both the artists involved and iHeartMedia. For example, most recently the artist The Weekend celebrated the release of his new album Starboy in Toronto by headlining the iHeartRadio Canada Jingle Ball. Thirty minutes of his live set was broadcasted on the iHeartRadio App, along with 112 of iHeart Media’s radio stations including KISS in Los Angeles and Z100 in New York [1]. The iHeartRadio Jingle Ball in Toronto also included performances by major artists such as Niall Horan, The Chainsmokers, and Alessia Cara.

[23] iHeartRadio celebrated One Direction’s 2013 album Midnight Memories with a special release party.

 

iHEART GLOBALLY
    Recently, iHeartRadio expanded into Canada with the collaboration of North America’s fastest growing digital audio service, Bell Media [2]. Canadians now have instant access to stations and to free streaming channels via iOS, Android apps, and at iHeartRadio.ca. iHeartRadio Canada uses content from Bell Media, which has over 105 licensed radio stations and 100 streaming channels [2]. With the expansion into Canada, iHeartRadio’s Jingle Ball will now be present in Toronto.
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[21] iHeartMedia’s Fiesta Latina is a part of the company’s Hispanic initiative.

    This part quarter iHeart partnered with Hispanic radio legend Enrique Santos, to create a new Hispanic initiative to develop new programming content for iHeartMedia across their various platforms. This new initiative recognizes the increasing size of the the U.S. Hispanic community that are both English and Spanish speakers, as well as utilizes Santos’ popular reputation within the Latino community [8].
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[22] iHeart partnered with Telemundo to air the program.

    Building off of this new initiative, just this past November iHeart celebrated the best in Latin Music at the iHeartRadio Fiesta Latina. They partnered with Telemundo to air the exclusive TV special and streamed the event live on Telemundo.com. Telemundo is an American-Spanish language television network owned by Comcast through NBCUniversal [10]. The event broadcasted live on iHeartMedia Spanish-Pop, Tropical, regional Mexican and Spanish Adult Hit radio stations all across the country [8].

 

THE FUTURE
    This coming January, iHeartMedia will be launching a new On-Demand music streaming service, that will put them amongst competition of services like Spotify and  Apple Music. The iHeartRadio All Access service will offer its subscribers unlimited on-demand listing to over 30 million songs. They will also offer a cheaper option, iHeartRadio Plus, which will gives its subscribers the ability to instantly replay songs they heard on iHeartRadio stations, through the app. According to iHeartRadio,the company has not yet decided how to price the two new services. However, $9.99 a month has become an industry standard for full on-demand subscriptions services. iHeartMedia earns most of its revenue through on-air advertisements, which they still will continue to air, despite the new revenue from the subscription service.
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[19] iHeart will be unveiling 2 different On-Demand services. iHeartRadio Plus and iHeartRadio All Access.

    iHeartMedia is not the only major radio based company making the switch, Pandora is creating its own on-demand based product estimated to cost $4.99 a month in the near future [6]. According to iHeart, iHeart All Access will “include a full on demand music collection experience – but one still tied directly to radio.” the company said. When listeners hear a song on the radio that they like, for the first time ever they will be able to replay that song or even save it directly to their playlist.

 

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[20] iHeart Radio’s On-Demand service is expected to launch in January 2017.

Sources:

[1] Bliss, Karen. “The Weeknd’s Album Release Day Live Set Broadcast on IHeartRadio.”Billboard. Billboard Music, 26 Nov. 2016. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.

[2] Dupuis, Renee. “IHeartRadio Now Available in Canada: Free Streaming Service Brings  Canadians Biggest and Best Music Experience.” Bell Media. Bell Media Canada, 6 Oct. 2016. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.

[3] Hendricks, David. “IHeartMedia’s Second-quarter Loss Widens to $278.9 Million.” San Antonio Express-News. San Antonio Express-News, 4 Aug. 2016. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.

[4] IHeartMedia, Inc. IHEARTMEDIA, INC. REPORTS RESULTS FOR THIRD QUARTER 2016. Rep. IHeartMedia, INC., 9 Nov. 2016. Web.

[5] Karp, Hannah. “IHeartMedia to Launch On-Demand Music Service.” The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 23 Sept. 2016. Web. 15 Oct. 2016.

[6] Lovelace, Berkeley, Jr. “Pandora CEO on On-demand Services: We’re in the Perfect Position.” CNBC. CNBC, 14 Sept. 2016. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.

[7] McAlone, Nathan. “The Biggest Radio Powerhouse in the US Just Took Aim at Apple and Spotify with a New Service.” Business Insider. Business Insider, 23 Sept. 2016. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.

[8] Ross, Kevin. “IHeartMedia, Inc. Reports Financial Results for the Third Quarter Ended September 30, 2016.” Radio Facts. N.p., 10 Nov. 2016. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.

[9] Stine, Randy. “IHeartMedia Shows Revenue Growth in Q3.” Radio World. Radio World, 10 Nov. 2016. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.

[10] Telemundo. “IHeartRadio Fiesta Latina 2016.” Telemundo. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.

[11] Vitucci, Danielle. “IHeartMedia Rings in the Holiday Season with the Return of Its Iconic 2016 National “iHeartRadio Jingle Ball Tour Presented by Capital One”.” IHeartMedia Rings in the Holiday Season with the Return of Its Iconic 2016 National “iHeartRadio Jingle Ball Tour Presented by Capital One” | Business Wire. BusinessWire, 11 Oct. 2016. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.

[12] Bob Pittman. iHeartMedia, Inc. Retrieved: November 28th 2016

[13] Wendy Goldberg.  iHeartMedia, Inc. Retrieved: November 28th 2016

[14] Richard J. Dressler. iHeartMedia, Inc. Retrieved: November 28th 2016

[15] William Eccleshare. iHeartMedia, Inc. Retrieved: November 28th 2016

[16] iHeartMedia. RadioFactsRetrieved: November 28th 2016

[17] iHeartMedia. Yahoo NewsRetrieved: November 28th 2016

[18] iHeartMedia. VectorNetworksRetrieved: November 28th 2016

[19] iHeartMedia. Hollywood.comRetrieved: November 28th 2016

[20] iHeartMedia. Business WireRetrieved: November 28th 2016

[21] iHeartMedia. Aaarena.com. Retrieved: November 28th 2016

[22]  iHeartMedia. iHeart.com. Retrieved: November 28th 2016

[23] One Direction Last First Kiss IHeartRadio Album Release Party. Perf. One Direction. Youtube, 3 Jan. 2014. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.

Spotify by Daniel Rakow

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Executives 

                       Daniel Elk                                                            Martin Lorenzton

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                      Martin Lorentzon - Spotify. Photo: thomasengstrom.com

History

Spotify was developed in 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden.  It was founded by the former CTO of Stardoll, Daniel Elk and the co-founder of TradeDoubler, Martin Lorentzon.  They officially launched the music streaming service in October of 2008 for paid subscribers and in 2009 they made their service available for free subscriptions.  The free subscriptions opened up the service to a bigger audience while slightly hindering their income.  In 2011 Spotify crossed over into the United States market and also introduced the Spotify App for devices. (1)

More About Spotify

Since 2011, Spotify has solidified its spot as one of the top music streaming services along with Apple Music and Tidal.  Today, Spotify features curated playlists that are made by their employees for paid subscribers.  They have radio stations that allow the user to discover new music based on artists that are similar to the ones the user listens to.  Along with that, they have a huge library of music consisting of 30 million songs.  Their premium service allows users to access all of their songs and provides weekly curated playlists called Discover Weekly.  Currently, they have over 75 million users with 30 million of those users being paid subscribers. (2)

Potential Change of Location 

Flag_of_Sweden.svg

(Swedish Flag)

As of recent, Spotify has been hinting at a change of location for its headquarters.  Since they started the company, they have been based in Stockholm, Sweden.  However, recent circumstances have lead them to reconsider their choice to remain in their hometown. As Elk wrote in an open letter that he posted online, “We love Sweden and believe that this is basically the best environment for us. But at the same time we cannot magically remove the political obstacles.  Thousands of Spotify jobs could go to the U.S instead of Sweden.”  Spotify is frustrated with the Swedish governments inability to let businesses in their country grow.  To start, Spotify believes the housing situation needs to be revisited.  It’s extremely difficult to rent apartments in Stockholm because such a large amount are controlled by housing associations.  It could take over 10 years to get a rental apartment which makes it extremely difficult for Spotify to bring in foreign talent. Another area Spotify argues needs change is their education system.  They argue that the country doesn’t focus at their schools enough on technology.  This leads to a lack of programmers for them to hire. The lack of knowledge causes them to have to train more workers, which could be avoided.  Lastly, Spotify hopes to change Sweden’s stock options.  The country’s rules don’t allow Spotify to grant their employees stock options which would attract brighter employees. (6) (7)

Competition

In the last month Spotify has had to deal with more competition than ever.  Not only have they been going head to head with Apple’s streaming service Apple Music, they have also seen a few new players enter the streaming world. To start, Apple has signed exclusive contracts with big artists.  These artists’ new albums debut on Apple Music and take a few weeks before they are available on Spotify.  Artists like Drake have Spotify users growing impatient when he drops new content.  He has 24 million monthly listeners and is the 7th most played artist on Spotify.  This could hurt them eventually if it doesn’t change.  Jay-Z music streaming service Tidal is another competitor with Spotify.  In early February Rihanna took to Tidal to release her new album Anti.  While it is now available on Spotify, for months it had users converting to Jay-z’s service to access it.  Similarly, Kanye West exclusively released his new album The Life of Pablo on Tidal.   However, The Life Of Pablo was recently made available on Spotify as well.  Soundcloud, in the last month, has also entered the subscription space.  They created Soundcloud Go which will also directly compete with Spotify.  Even with all these competing services, Spotify has a loyal user base of over 75 million people that will be hard to take away from them. (8)

Spotify x Billboard 

billboard-music

(Billboard)

On April 21 Billboard announced it’s partnership with Spotify for 2016.  This is a huge win for Spotify over Apple Music.  Billboard will bring all of its users to Spotify instead of Apple Music.  Billboard’s charts are turning to Spotify to make it easier for its users to access today’s hits by streaming songs directly from their weekly charts.  Now, when viewing the Hot 100 or Billboard 200 the user is able to listen to the songs they are analyzing.  There are 30 second previews directly next to the song on the chart that also give the option to stream the full version on Spotify.  Billboard will also be publishing 3 new spotify driven charts on billboard.com.  One will be a 30 song Velocity Chart which will include the 30 most trending songs on Spotify.  The next will have a Viral 50 chart which will consist of the 50 most shared songs across social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Lastly there will be a Velocity Chart with 30 songs with 5 songs for each decade (1960-2000).  To take a look at the Billboard Hot 100 with Spotify streaming click here(9)

Money

Spotify recently has raised over 1 billion dollars in debt financing.  This is a substantial amount especially for a company that is financially stable.  It is no doubt that Spotify now has money to spend but the question is: what will Spotify decide to do with all this extra money? forbes.com went into detail with ways that Spotify is planning on improving. Firstly, they are expected to get into the video space. Apple and Tidal already both have video content on their service.  Spotify, being their number one competitor, will definitely start exploring music videos, behind the scenes, artist episodes, tour videos, and live footage. One major area they will have to work on is their payment rates.  Their current rate per stream is .004.  This rate tends to anger artists because they believe they are not being compensated for their art.  This has lead artists like Taylor Swift and Adele to not allow their catalog of music to be included on their streaming service.  With the extra money Spotify is planning to start working in these areas. (10)

Sources

(1) Streatfield, Brooke. Rise of a Tech Giant: The History of Spotify. The Telegraph.  Retrieved: April 25, 2016

(2) Person, Adam Pasick. The Magic That Makes Spotify’s Discover Weekly Playlists so Damn Good. Quartz. Retrieved: April 25, 2016

(3) Bertoni, Steven.  Spotify’s Daniel Elk: The Most Important Man In Music.  Forbes.  Retrieved: April 24, 2016

(4) Sloan, Paul.  The Future of Music.  CNET.  Retrieved: April 24, 2016

(5) Spotify.  Vulcan Post.  Retrieved: April 25, 2015

(6) McIntrye, Hugh.  Spotify May Soon Leave Sweden.  Forbes.  Retrieved: April 23, 2016

(7) Swedish Flag.  Eduniversal.  Retrieved: April 23, 2016

(8) Apple Music’s Biggest Swipe at Spotify Yet.  Music Business Worldwide. Retrieved: April 24, 2016

(9) Billboard Staff.  Billboard Announces Spotify as Exclusive Playback Partner of The ChartsBillboard.  Retrieved: April 24, 2015

(10) McIntrye, Hugh.  What Can Spotify Do With The $1 Billion It Just Raised?  Forbes.  Retrieved: April 24, 2015

Singleton, Micah.  Spotify Hits 30 million Subscribers.  The Verge.  Retrieved: April 25, 2016

 

Pandora Radio

by Kyle Miller

Pandora App Logo (Courtesy of Pandora Pressroom) [1]

2100 Franklin St
Suite 700
Oakland, CA 94612  Telephone #: (510) 451-4100

Overview of Pandora Radio

            Pandora Radio is an internet music streaming company that emerged online in 2005.  The company was founded by Tim Westergren, an award-winning music composer, and currently runs out of Oakland, CA.  Pandora offers a wide library of music to listeners and can help users discover new tracks and artists that are similar to the music they currently enjoy.  The streaming service is fueled by The Music Genome Project, which is an on going music analysis study that has created a formula using specific musical characteristics to help bring each user a unique playlist that caters to their music preference [2].  Pandora Radio is free to any person who enters their site, although there is an option for a paid subscription of $4.99 a month which deems a user a “Pandora One” member.  These members are able to stream music ad free and also get much higher sound quality when streaming [3].

“The Next Song” Pandora Youtube Video. (Courtesy of Youtube) [4]

Interface

Screen Shot 2015-12-01 at 9.53.02 PM

Screen Shot of Pandora Interface. [5]

             Operating Pandora Radio is a simple, yet exciting experience.  With over a million different songs, users are able to search their favorite artists and then get a playlist that will deliver similar music.  When a track appears, users are able read lyrics as the song plays and browse the “About” section to learn more background information on who created the music.  Users can create up to 100 different playlists and can also notify Pandora if they do not enjoy the music, so the site can start to find better songs to fit that user’s preferences. [2]

Key Executives

20_TimWestergren

TimWestergren – Founder of Pandora Radio (Courtesy of Pandora Pressroom) [6]

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Brian McAndrews – Chief Executive Officer, President & Chairman (Courtesy of Pandora Pressroom) [8]

Steve Bene – General Counsel (Courtesy of Pandora Pressroom) [7]

 

Finances

       Pandora’s third quarter results of 2015 reported a total revenue of $311.6 million.  This total was a 30% increase from the results of last year’s Q3 mark.  Advertising revenue also rose 31% to a total of $254.7 million [9].   Pandora executives relate this growth to the company’s recent $450 million dollar acquisition of Ticketfly, which makes Pandora a location to now discover and purchase tickets for upcoming live shows, attracting many new users who are avid concert goers [10].  Unfortunately, competition in the music streaming business has been a major concern for Pandora.  On October 23, Pandora had the company’s worst share drop off, falling 35 percent in one day primarily due to the rise of Apple Music and Spotify.  Apple Music recently reported it had 6.5 million paying subscribers, compared to only 3 million Pandora One subscribers who pay a monthly fee [11].

       Pandora currently sits at a $14 stock price, which seems negative for potential investors, but analysts do see potential with the company in the future.  The market currently predicts that Pandora’s premium is going to rise greatly over the next two January calls, signifying that their stock should move back up in the future.  Analysts also expect a major investor to acquire Pandora by 2017 due to the company’s growing diversification and increase in overall revenue [12].

Pandora’s Share Prices of 2015 (Courtesy of Bloomberg.com) [13]

 Interacting with Music Fans

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Tim McGraw Performing (Courtesy of Billboard.com) [16]

           Pandora Radio has made great efforts this year to create a close relationship with their audience.  On September 9th, Pandora celebrated their 10 year anniversary by providing ad free streaming to anyone who visited their site.  This thanked fans for the support they had given to Pandora and also allowed people to see what being a paid subscriber entailed [14].  Pandora also stayed committed to their goal of bringing artists and fans closer together.  On November 11th, Pandora and country music star, Tim McGraw, joined together to create a listening party for McGraw’s new album, Damn Country Music.  The event took place in New York City and included a live performance from the country singer that was free of charge for fans [15].  To celebrate the holiday season, Pandora is hosting a concert event in New York City on December 10th.  The show, which will also be available to be streamed at home, will feature acclaimed artists Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco, and G-Eazy [17].

Competition

          Digital streaming is the most popular way people are accessing music today.  Although Pandora was created much earlier, streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal have impacted the market greatly by forming on-demand listening.  In response, Pandora payed $75 million dollars to acquire assets from the music streaming service, Rdio, which recently fell into bankruptcy.  This will eventually make Pandora an on-demand streaming site, which will possibly attract people to leave other sites and use Pandora [18].  Pandora also recently took a major step ahead of competitors by having Adele’s critically acclaimed album, 25, on their site.  Since Pandora does not hold deals with major record labels and does not give their users access to chose the exact song they want, they are able to have the tracks available.  Apple Music, Spotify, and others are restricted from having the number one album, because Adele’s record label chose to forgo streaming sales and focus primarily on selling physical copies [19].

The Future of Pandora

       With the recent acquisition of Rdio, Pandora is preparing for a significant business change.  Unlike their competitor Spotify who offers free streaming, Pandora plans to ally with artists and labels and only offer paid on demand subscription.  This will put Pandora at a large disadvantage compared to Spotify, but the company believes that their main goal is to respect the art of music and the ones who spend handwork creating it [20].  Clear evidence that Pandora wants to honor artists is seen in their recent multi-year deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing.  Pandora agreed to increase their royalty payments with the largest music publishing company, which will now open new opportunities for Pandora.  They now have the ability to expand to a international market with the music rights they have acquired, which could be a major business move since Pandora is currently only available in the United States, New Zealand, and Australia [21].

      Pandora also expanded their massive music library with many popular pre-1972 recordings of music.  The company reached a $90 million settlement to avoid any copyright allegations, setting the precedent to other streaming companies to respect the artists.  This addition of music attracts an older audience range to Pandora and will hopefully encourage record labels to be reasonable with establishing deals once Pandora begins their on demand service [22].

The Pandora Media Inc. logo is seen on an Apple Inc. iPhone displayed for a photograph in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2013. Pandora Media Inc., owner of the biggest Web radio service, filed to raise about $231 million by issuing new shares after its stock more than doubled this year. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Pandora Logo on an Iphone (Courtesy of Fortune News) [23]

Sources

  1. Pandora App Logo – press.pandora.com. Retrieved November 28 2015.

    2. About Pandora – Pandora. Retrieved November 28 2015.

    3. Pandora One – Pandora. Retrieved November 28 2015.

    4. The Next Song – YouTube. Retrieved November 28 2015.

    5. Pandora in Action – Pandora. Retrieved November 28 2015.

    6. Headshot of Tim Westergren – press.pandora.com. Retrieved November 28 2015.

    7. Headshot of  Steve Bene – press.pandora.com Retrieved November 28 2015.

    8. Headshot of Brian McAndrews – press.pandora.com Retrieved November 28 2015.

    9. Pandora Q3 2015 Financial Results – investor.pandora.com Retrieved November 28 2015.

   10. Roettgers, Janko (October 7, 2015) Pandora Buys Ticketfly to Sell Concert Tickets to Its ListenersVariety – Retrieved November 28 2015.

    11. Sisario, Ben (October 23, 2015) Pandora Shares Plummet as Competition GrowsNY Times – Retrieved November 28 2015.

    12. Hagopian, Todd (October 28, 2015) After Pandora’s Steep Drop, An Acquisition Is Almost Inevitable – Seeking Alpha – Retrieved November 28 2015.

    13. Pandora’s Share Price Chart – Bloomberg.com – Retrieved November 28 2015.

    14. Olanoff, Drew (September 1, 2015) Pandora To Celebrate 10th Anniversary With Day of Ad-Free Listening – TechCrunch – Retrieved November 28 2015.

    15. Stutz, Colin (October 27, 2015) Tim McGraw to Celebrate ‘Damn Country Music’ Release With Pandora Mixtape, Party – Billboard – Retrieved November 28 2015.

    16. Tim McGraw PerformingBillboard – Retrieved November 28 2015.

     17. (November 10, 2015) Pandora Holiday: Exclusive NYC Concert and Livestream Featuring Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, G-Eazy and DJ Sets by Cash Cash – Business Wire – Retrieved November 28 2015.

     18. Owsinski, Bobby (November 18, 2015) – The Pros and Cons of Pandora’s Rdio Acquisition – Forbes – Retrieved November 28 2015.

      19. Kastrenakes, Jacob (November 25, 2015) – Pandora is Streaming Adele’s ’25’ and Her Label Can’t Stop It – The Verge – Retrieved November 28 2015.

      20. Popper, Ben (December 1, 2015) – Pandora Cozies up to the Music Labels as it Prepares to Take on Spotify – The Verge – Retrieved December 1 2015.

      21. Peoples, Glenn (November 13, 2015) – The Pandora-Sony/ATV Deal – Billboard – Retrieved November 29 2015.

     22. Gardner, Eriq (October 22, 2015) – Pandora Reaches $90 Million Settlement With Labels Over Pre-1972 Music – Billboard – Retrieved November 29 2015.

    23. Pandora Logo – Fortune.com – Retrieved November 29 2015.