The end of MixRadio as LINE quietly kills off music streaming service
After a whirlwind ride through many owners the latest one - LINE - has just posted a late-night press release noting that the company is shuttering the doors on the popular music streaming service MixRadio.
Context & Ripple Effects
MixRadio has cycled through owners fast: Microsoft sold the streaming service to messaging firm LINE in December 2014 as part of LINE's push to take its music focus global (the acquisition), and the service launched iOS and Android apps just last May (its cross-platform expansion) in an attempt to grow beyond its Windows Phone roots.
The shutdown lands mid-wave in streaming consolidation: Pandora had just turned off Rdio weeks earlier (Rdio's December shutdown), and Microsoft itself would later exit consumer streaming entirely by discontinuing Groove Music Pass and recommending Spotify instead (Microsoft's Groove wind-down).
First-order effects
- MixRadio's subscribers lose their streaming service outright, and LINE exits the music business barely a year after buying it to go global.
Second-order effects
- Each failed independent service hands its audience to the scaled incumbents — the same dynamic that saw Pandora absorb Rdio's shutdown and Microsoft later route Groove users to Spotify.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, mid-tier streaming services become structurally unviable: owned as side bets by larger companies, they get shuttered or absorbed rather than funded to compete, leaving a market organized around a few at-scale platforms.
The trend: Music streaming is consolidating around a handful of scaled platforms as corporate owners keep winding down subscale services rather than funding them against entrenched leaders.