I still think LSYN will be bought out, even more now :)
ack to News Results
Pandora Launches Podcasts as Its Merger with Sirius XM Nears -- Barrons.com
10:45 am ET November 13, 2018 (Dow Jones) Print
By David Marino-Nachison
Pandora Media (P), moving toward a merger with Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI), continues to develop its product, on Tuesday announcing the launch of a first version of its podcast service.
The service, currently available in a mobile-only beta mode, will be more widely available "in the coming weeks," the company said. A focus of Pandora's announcement was on discovery, the company saying that recommendations will be a key component of the offering.
This announcement had been generally expected, with management saying during a July conference call with investors that it planned to launch before year's end. CEO Roger Lynch said at the time not to expect any financial impact in 2018, with podcast monetization still "in the relatively early innings."
"We would expect throughout next year to start to see some results from that," Lynch said on the second-quarter call, a transcript of which is available on Seeking Alpha. (The company didn't do a third-quarter call.) "But obviously it is too early to tell how quickly that listening will ramp."
One measure of how far podcast advertising revenue still has to grow: This summer, a report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PwC US estimated that the total market will still be a good bit under $1 billion in 2020. (Pandora is expected to report total revenue of about $1.56 billion this year, according to FactSet.)
The Sirius XM merger is expected to close early next year, and CEO James Meyer said in September after the deal was announced that "both Pandora and Sirius believe we both need to take a more active step in podcasting."
Meyer sees cross-promotion of both products across both audiences as a key strength of the deal as they battle other tech companies, Spotify Technology (SPOT) among them, for market share in a business that's still mostly offline. Some observers have expressed doubts about whether it'll work.
"We still see Pandora struggling to grow active listeners and lay out a path to sustainable profitability," Dougherty & Co. analyst Steven Frankel wrote Tuesday. "Contrary to our skepticism, SiriusXM clearly sees value here."
Meanwhile, podcasting is generally seen as a must-have component of any streaming audio offering as 2019 nears. "Our opportunity really is gigantic," Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in November on an earnings call.
"There aren't too many companies in the world that are focused on that opportunity of bringing audio online, and as part of that, obviously, we think non-music content has a very important place," Ek said. "We're really investing in both improving the user experience around that, but also improving monetization for creators in that space."
Email David Marino-Nachison at david.marino-nachison@barrons.com. Follow him at @marinonachison and follow Barron's Next at @barronsnext .
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 13, 2018 10:45 ET (15:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
