Pandora To Buy Rdio Assets For $75M In Cash

An anonymous reader writes: Pandora is acquiring music subscription service Rdio for $75 million in cash. "The transaction is contingent upon Rdio seeking protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California. Upon approval of the proposed transaction by the bankruptcy court, Rdio will be winding down the Rdio-branded service in all markets," Pandora said in a statement. TechCrunch reports: "That was fast: just as soon as it was reported that Pandora was in talks to buy Rdio, the two sides have confirmed that an acquisition is indeed taking place. Pandora has acquired "key assets" from Rdio for $75 million, the company has just announced. But as part of it, the Rdio service as we know it is tanking: the streaming service is shutting down and Rdio is filing for bankruptcy."

First question...

[Anonymous Coward]

....who the hell is Rdio?

Second question, why is its spelling completely stupid? That's worse than flickr and tumblr.

Re:

[youngone]

Second question, why is anything they have worth $75 million? It's bankrupt.

Re:First question...

[AK Marc]

Bankruptcy is about cashflow, not assets. Most people would sell assets to prevent the bankruptcy, but that becomes a cashflow when you sell them.

Looks like Rdio has lots of debts, and no means to pay them off, but something worth $75M, so Pandora is buying something for $75M and that payment will go to the creditors of Rdio. Those creditors could stop the sale, but in practice never do, as their share of $75M is much higher than their share of the bankrupt company if it were divided and sold off in smaller pieces.

Re:

[jarkus4]

No, they are not getting the customer base. They are buying only IP so patents, software etc. They are not taking over the service (its going to get closed) and their own similiar stuff will not appear for about a year more, so likely there will even be no indirect transfers of the "we are closing, but you may like..." kind

Re:

[youngone]

their share of $75M is much higher than their share of the bankrupt company

Which is why Pandora are nuts paying $75 M for it.

Re:

[AK Marc]

If they pay $1 for it, the creditors would refuse the deal, opting instead to sell the parts individually. The price is one both Pandora and Rdio think is reasonable, yet everyone on Slashdot knows better than the paid professionals.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Rdio was the spiritual successor to Kazaa. What was nice about it was the fact that they had a large selection of albums to choose from, and one could save them (although encrypted) for offline playback. It also was useful for finding new stuff to listen to.

Initially, they were the only game in town, as Spotify initially was snubbing the US market, but once they saw that Rdio was actually making inroads, decided to actually deign to have US customers.

I am sorry to see them go, because less competition mea

Re:

[gl4ss]

spotify clone that had a nice web client before spotify had web client.

they also had an api, like spotify

Great! Thank you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can finally push the stupid fucking paid for advertising spot Rdio button on my Roku remote and maybe, just maybe get Pandora...

Spent too much money

[tompaulco]

I guess they spent too much money advertising on the radio.

Video killed the Rdio star

[sanf780]

I am not sure how other services compete, but the few times that I have used Rdio, the only advertisement they run were for their own subs. I do not believe such an internet related company can survive with just subscriptions.

Note: I have discovered Rdio because it was one of the first Chromecast compatible applications