CBS hopes for Last.fm profit in 2010
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Despite a big executive shake-up last year, CBS has high hopes for its Last.fm streaming music subsidiary. “Our plan is to be profitable with Last.fm in 2010,” says product VP Fred McIntyre. “We’re very bullish on the subscription service… the subscription business drives about a quarter of Last.fm’s revenue.”
McIntyre says Last.fm has paying subscribers in the “high tens of thousands”, and that it will be launching new features for these paying users in Q2 this year. Apparently the US is now a quarter of Last.fm’s audience too – although we suspect that’s not just about organic growth in the US, but about European users moving to other services like Spotify.
Last.fm is in a strange position right now, flying under the media radar in comparison with newer rivals like Spotify and MOG. Yet it’s still live and kicking: 2010 should prove whether CBS really does have the commitment to its streaming music subsidiary to get it back into the limelight.
