Goal: A Pandora In Every Car

Tim Westergren hasn't always been the digital music prophet. When he founded Pandora Media in 2000, it was more of a curious academic experiment called the Music Genome Project to analyze the attributes of all types of music, from early Renaissance classical to trip hop and funk.

That was followed in 2005 by Pandora's Internet radio, which serves up music deemed by the Music Genome to be similar to favorite songs or bands of individual listeners.

The LA Times reports though wildly popular, the company limped along financially until 2008, when Westergren announced that it was on the brink of collapse, thanks to a dramatic, retroactive increase in what Internet radio stations such as Pandora were ordered by federal courts to pay in performance royalties.

The announcement came as a shock to its 6 million listeners, who bombarded their elected officials with demands for reducing the fees. The campaign, called SaveNetRadio, worked. The fees were ratcheted down last year, sparing Pandora from what seemed like certain extinction.

The Oakland company still forks over 60% of its revenue in royalties, but now it can focus on growing, rather than just staying alive. Pandora today has more than 40 million listeners on mobile devices.

What's next? Westergren, the company's boyish and lanky chief executive who favors striped T-shirts that make him look much more youthful than his 44 years, answers that in a recent interview with The LA Times.

Read more here.

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