It’s sometimes easy to forget that Pandora used to be an international music-streaming service, before pulling back to the US on licensing grounds.
Beyond a 2012 launch in Australia and New Zealand, the company has since stuck to its North American market focus – but that may change soon.
Bloomberg reports that Pandora is “laying the groundwork for an international expansion of its online radio service by seeking rights to play songs outside the US”, suggesting that the UK is “an important early target” for the expansion.
The report follows Pandora’s recent announcement that its new direct licensing deal with Sony/ATV included “the ability to add new flexibility to the company’s product offering over time”.
At the time, we wondered whether that meant more on-demand style features – Bloomberg backs that up with the claim that more skipping and offline storage may be on the cards – but international expansion may also fit the bill.
Pandora will need to improve its relationships with labels and publishers to strike the necessary deals for global expansion, but the company has been making more effort on that score in recent months.
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