Music service Pandora named a new CEO on Monday as it wrestles with competition from Spotify and other newer streaming apps.
Roger Lynch, the head of Dish's streaming video service, will take over the helm of the Oakland, California, company Sept. 18.
Pandora said Lynch is the right leader because he has worked with media companies on new distribution models. He is the founding CEO of Dish's Sling TV, which was launched in 2015 as one of the first apps to bundle live TV for the internet.
Pandora Media Inc. was founded 17 years ago and has primarily been a free internet radio service making money from ads. But its user base has stagnated and its financial losses deepened as new competitors have gained steam.
It has launched new subscription products over the past year, including one that copies Spotify, Apple Music and other apps by letting users pick the songs they want to listen to.
Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren left the company in late June after a 15-month stint as CEO. He departed a few weeks after satellite radio company Sirius XM bought a 19 percent stake in a strategic investment, gaining three board seats.
Pandora also said Monday that it is adding to its board Michael Lynton, the chairman of Snapchat's owner Snap Inc. and former head of film studio Sony Pictures.
Pandora's shares added 35 cents, or 4.3 percent, to $8.42 in after-hours trading. The stock had dropped 38 percent this year through the close of Monday's regular session.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More