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Last.fm to switch off hosted radio service

By | Published on Thursday 27 March 2014

Last.fm

Last.fm has announced that, on 28 Apr, it will switch off its ‘hosted radio service’, currently only available to paid subscribers in a small number of territories, meaning it’s content services will totally rely on music drawn from other platforms.

As previously reported, Last.fm launched a new player for its Pandora-style radio service in beta back in January, which draws music from YouTube. Then a week later in reinstated on-demand streaming through a partnership with Spotify.

In an email to premium subscribers yesterday, the company said: “From 28 Apr, our subscription radio streaming service will come to an end. This means subscriber radio will no longer work on any platform or device. We’re making this change to focus on improving scrobbling and recommendations, while continuing our goal of being your #onemusichome. Of course you’ll still be able to listen to all of your favourite stations on the new Last.fm Player, as well as listen to your favourite tracks with our recently launched on-demand playback feature via Spotify”.

It has been expected that Last.fm would switch off its own hosted radio service for some time, given that this is one of the more expensive parts of its offering, and one which has been slowly downsized in terms of reach and functionality over recent years. This latest shift suggests Last.fm is now fully focused on being a data business that links in to other music platforms.

Last year it was also rumoured that the web company had been given just one more year to begin earning some money for its owner CBS, hence all the cost cutting. Though the site also now has plans to launch a line of merch. So, consider the books balanced.



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