Music Business Worldwide:

When Pandora Media launched on the NYSE in June 2011, it started trading at $16 a share – with a $2.6bn valuation.

Optimism was rife for music’s big digital play on the stock market. The expectation was that the firm’s valuation, and global presence, would soar.

Today, over six years on, Pandora is worth less than a third of what it was that day, at under $5 per share.

And, according to MBW’s calculations, there’s even sorrier news for the firm’s new regime to contemplate: Pandora has now lost over a billion dollars in less than four years.

I hate the math, but it is the math. To me, Pandora hasn’t lost value as a music service. They still serve the same purpose, offer the same set of services. The loss is financial. But that’s what counts in this situation.

It gets worse: as recently as summer 2016, SiriusXM reportedly made a bid to acquire Pandora for $3.4bn, or $15 per share.

That’s more than three times what Pandora’s worth now.

The offer was rejected.

Ouch.