Though I was kneecap deep in local stories while I was working at Press Herald Plaza over the weekend, something that came across the NXT Desk shocked me.

"Pandora Close to 'Pulling the Plug."

Wait...what?

If you haven't introduced yourself to Pandora over the last few years, you have been missing out.

And according to an article in the Washington Post this weekend, you may have missed big as the Internet radio station may be dying an untimely death.

A simple answer to what may lead to the downfall of Pandora (and possibly other Internet radio) is the same as what has been bringing down all online music -- the recording industry.

As is the case most times the recording industry tries to cannibalize itself, it's about the money. "Performance royalties" are what they call it, and under new rates that will go into effect over the next few years, online radio would pay 2.91 cents per hour and listener. Satellite radio will pay 1.6 cents per hour/listener.

Regular old terrestrial radio? Nothing.

Pandora guesses it would pay up to 70 percent of its revenue in royalties this year.

When you look at it that way, is it any wonder why they're talking about closing their doors?

If Pandora were to go dark, it would be a tremendous setback to Internet radio. I don't think I'm different from a lot of people who like to listen to music while they work during the day, and options like Pandora make that easy.

But what makes Pandora stand out is its expansive database. Pandora is a product of the Music Genome Project, which cataloged all the unique traits of bajillions of songs. Put all that together and it makes for an amazing listening experience.

For example, I start off by telling Pandora I like the song "A Quick One, While He's Away," from The Who, and it spins off a station from that song, with artists and music that share commonalities with "A Quick One." As you go along Pandora keeps recommending new songs, and learns your likes and dislikes by how you rate what you're hearing.

From there it keeps growing and before you know it you've got over 25 personal stations and counting.

I can personally say that Pandora has led me to buy music. A few months back when a friend asked me to play some soul records at her birthday party, Pandora was one of the places I turned to for early inspiration. Needless to say my record crate got a little heavier shortly afterwards.

While we've all got our favorite bands and albums, getting turned on to new music can be a tricky thing. You can trust your friends' tastes, the guys in the record shops who you've come to know or even your favorite local DJ. But where do you go from there?

As I write this I've got Pandora on one of my stations and "Hold On" by Fontella Bass just came on. Fontella Bass was a soul singer in the 60s and 70s who put out records on smaller R&B labels. Now how on earth would I have ever discovered this song elsewhere?

Shouldn't listening to something new and falling in love with it be the point of music? Who doesn't like discovering new singers, bands, artists and albums? Isn't that one of the most fun parts of music, having that first "What is this, who is this" moment?

As much as the recording industry wants to deny it, the Internet has become one of the best tools for doing all of this, through file sharing, music blogs and Internet radio like Pandora.

And yet one after one they've systematically hunted them down and tried to wipe them out - if not make things very difficult.

While I can understand that money (and who gets paid) is a reality in the music business, isn't reaching out to, finding and keeping music lovers also part of the business?

["Perhaps Pandora Must Be Our Sacrificial Lamb" - TechCrunch]

E-mail this entry to a friend