Pandora executive team to exit after Sirius XM buy-out

Pandora’s executive team, including CEO Roger Lynch, will be leaving once the company’s $3.5 billion buy-out by satellite radio operator Sirius XM Holdings finalises.

Sirius CEO Jim Meyer will lead the combined companies. Two years ago, both generated almost $7 billion in revenue.

SiriusXM made known its intention to acquire Pandora last September.

97% of Pandora stockholders approved the buy-out on January 29.

Since Lynch took over in August 2017, he built up Pandora’s subscription streaming service and digital ad business.

In the third quarter of 2018, ending September 30, it grew its revenue by 16% and added 800,000 new paid subscribers.

But Pandora continues to lose monthly active listeners, in Q3 falling to 68.8 million, from 73.7 million in Q3 2017.

Similarly, total listener hours dropped to 4.81 billion in Q3 2018, from 5.15 billion the same period in 2017.

Also exiting Pandora are chief financial officer Naveen Chopra, chief human resources officer Kristen Robinson and general counsel Steve Bene.

In the short term, the merger of the two companies will see Pandora using Sirius’ radio listener data on likes and dislikes for more personalised playlists.

Pandora is about to get more non-music services, which will consolidate Sirius XM’s position in the US with the biggest presence in autos with 30 million subscribers.

Speculation is that down the track, Liberty Media, which owns 70% of Sirius XM, could go for a complete take-over.

Liberty Media owns a huge chunk of Live Nation and is making a move for some of iHeart Media when it comes out of bankruptcy.

That would be one major media powerhouse.