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Business News Digital
Rdio shuts down video-on-demand spin-off Vdio
By Chris Cooke | Published on Saturday 28 December 2013
Streaming content company Rdio has shut down its film-on-demand spin-off Vdio, just over a year since it went into private beta and just six months since it opened its doors to all.
There is an argument that for streaming audio to go truly mainstream, music services will need to become integrated with film and TV on-demand set-ups down the line, so there was a logic to Rdio moving into movies before it had even got its music offer properly established. Though the film and TV studios are less prone to licence large catalogues of content, and the video-on-demand space is already dominated by Netflix and Amazon, while many of the traditional broadcasters have ambitions in that direction too.
Either way, Rdio has decided that its early play in online video – which in the end was more like the rentals side of iTunes than Netflix – was a mistake and it has written to those who signed up for it to say that Vdio, still officially a ‘beta service’, is no more. The firm’s email noted: “Despite our efforts, we were not able to deliver the differentiated customer experience we had hoped for, and so Vdio is now closed”. Those with credit in their Vdio accounts will get Amazon vouchers.
Presumably, as well as Vdio not proving to be as revolutionary as hoped, running the video-on-demand service put a further strain on the Rdio’s company’s resources. Last month it reduced its workforce by about 35, leading to speculation about the firm’s ability to continue expanding in an increasingly competitive marketplace where even the market leaders are making a loss.
Spotify and Deezer continue to dominate in the subscription streaming space in Europe, while in the US interactive radio services like Pandora and iTunes Radio have had the biggest impact, and in the fully on-demand domain Beats and YouTube are likely to become serious competition in 2014. All of which means, it will be interesting to see how Rdio fares in the coming year.
