Spotify made a loss of £26.5m in 2010

"Accounts filed with Companies House show the likely reason Spotify wanted to break America so badly.
Last year, the music service’s revenue exploded by 458 percent, but its income was more than swallowed up by growing outgoings. So Spotify finished 2010 with a deeper annual loss of £26.5 ($41.46) million.
“It is crucial that Spotify continues to penetrate existing and new markets as quickly as possible,” according to Spotify’s accounts filed at Companies House.
2010 was, however, the year when subscriptions (£45 ($70.4) million) began leaping ahead of advertising income (£18 ($28.16) million) for Spotify…
These accounts, of course, are almost a year old. In 2011, Spotify tightened available free music and got the U.S. launch it wanted. Now its path to success looks far more likely. It now has over two million paying subscribers - more than any rival service."

Source:  PaidContent, 10th October 2011

Pandora posted a loss of $1.8m in Q2 2011

"The Oakland firm reported a 117% increase in revenue from a year earlier to $67 million as advertising and subscription sales grew.
The company, however, continued to lose money, posting a $1.8-million loss, or a loss of 4 cents a share, for the quarter that ended July 31 compared with a $1.6-million profit, or 4 cents, a year earlier.
Adjusting for stock compensation costs for its executives and other special expenses, Pandora posted $3.3 million in net income, compared with $2.6 million a year earlier. Analysts had expected Pandora to break even for the quarter on $61 million in revenue."
Source:  LA Times, 25th August 2011

News Corp sold MySpace for over $500m less than the purchase price

"MySpace, the long-suffering Web site that the News Corporation bought six years ago for $580 million, was sold Wednesday to the advertising network Specific Media for roughly $35 million.
The News Corporation, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, had been trying since last winter to rid itself of the unprofitable unit, which was a casualty of changing tastes and may be a cautionary tale for social companies like Zynga and LinkedIn that are currently enjoying sky-high valuations.
Relief over the sale was palpable on Wednesday, and not just at the News Corporation. Wall Street “just wanted it done, because it’s been a real drag on growth,” said Michael Nathanson, a media sector analyst for Nomura Securities.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the News Corporation said that it would retain a minority stake. Specific Media said it had brought on board the artist Justin Timberlake as a part owner and an active player in MySpace’s future, but said little else about how the site would change.
The sale closes a complex chapter in the history of the Internet and of the News Corporation, which was widely envied by other media companies when it acquired MySpace in 2005. At that time, MySpace was the world’s fastest-growing social network, with 20 million unique visitors each month in the United States. That figure soon soared to 70 million, but the network could not keep pace with Facebook, which overtook MySpace two years ago.
As users fled MySpace, so, too, did advertisers. The market research firm eMarketer estimates that the site will earn about $183 million in worldwide ad revenue this year, down from $605 million at its peak, when the site introduced many Web users and many advertisers to the concept of social networking."

Source:  New York Times, 29th June 2011

Amazon lost more than $3m (estimate) selling Lady Gaga's album for $0.99

"After all that talk about underperforming singles and creative bankruptcy and overexposure, Lady Gaga did exactly what she was supposed to do with Born This Way, her first album since officially branding herself a superstar: sell a ridiculous number of units. The exact number, 1.1 million in the first week, is startling — but it comes with a caveat. That final tally was greatly boosted by the fact that Amazon, looking to drive people toward their new Cloud Drive music locker service, dropped the price on Born This Way’s digital release to an all-new loss-leader low of 99 cents. Over the two days of the offer, the album was downloaded 440,000 times, roughly two thirds of its overall digital sales count. So how much did Amazon cough up in the process?
According to the New York Times, Amazon paid Gaga’s distributor, Universal, full price (between $8 or $9 per album), meaning they lost more than $3 million. That is certainly a ton of money to have kicked into your campaign by an entity that has no actual interest in how well your album sells, and it provides much fodder for anyone wishing to quibble with the validity of the 1.1 million number."

Source:  NYMag, 2nd June 2011

Shazam lost over £600,000 on revenues of nearly £11m in the year to June 2010

"Mobile discovery service Shazam has published its financial results for the year ended 30 June 2010.
The company reported revenues of £10.6 million, and a loss after tax of £635,366 in the documents, filed with Companies House in the UK.
That compares to revenues of £7.3 million in the previous financial year (ended 30 June 2009), when Shazam reported a loss after tax of £89,943.
In its latest financial year, Shazam’s administration expenses were £10.5 million, having grown from £6.6 million in the previous year. Of the £10.5 million, £4 million went on wages and salaries."

Source:  Music Ally, 7th April 2011