OAKLAND, Calif. �Tim Westergren, who in 2000 helped found the company that eventually became Pandora, has been appointed CEO of the company after the departure of former CEO Brian McAndrews.
Westergren, who�d been acting as the company�s chief evangelist, is now back in a post he manned�from May 2002 to July 2004, when the company was known as Savage Beast Technologies. Pandora was introduced in 2005, and the company went public in 2011.� He served as the company�s chief strategy officer until February 2014.
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�The return of Mr. Westergren, who has been serving in a board position, signals that this is a critical juncture for Pandora as it tries to restore the growth of its early years. After climbing rapidly, its number of monthly users fell to 81.1 million at the end of 2015, from 81.5 million a year before. Its stock has fallen by about 75 percent since its peak in early 2014,� according to theNew York Times.� �…as competitors like Spotify and Apple Music transform the streaming music market around it, Pandora has come under increasing pressure to adapt. In recent months Pandora has unveiled ambitious changes to its service, and also weighed whether to sell itself.�
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Pandora plans to move toward an on-demand streaming model that would put it in direct competition with Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon and others in an increasingly crowded online music market, in order to �revitalize itself� according to The Times.�
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Pandora has never been able to solve its core problem: The more people listen, the harder it becomes for the company to turn a profit. Around�half of its revenue goes to pay for the rights to play songs to its 81 million listeners. Largely because of those�music-licensing costs, Pandora has been unprofitable each year since its IPO in 2011, according toBloomberg.com.�
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In addition to the re-appointment of Westergren, Pandora has also re-structured their primary management:�Mike Herring is president and chief financial officer, Sara Clemens steps up from CSO�as the company�s new chief operating officer and Chris Phillips is�chief product officer.�
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