CBS-owned online music service Last.fm made a loss of £2.1m last year, as revenues slumped more than 20% and staff numbers almost halved.
Last.fm, which has made a string of annual losses since being acquired by the US broadcaster in 2007 for $280m, at least managed to almost half the £3.94m pre-tax loss notched up in 2012.
Revenues fell 22.8% from £6.38m to £4.92m.
Of this £3.55m came from ad sales and just over £1m from subscriptions, the remainder came from affiliate sales.
UK revenues almost halved (from £1.28m to £693,000); US revenues fell by 22% (£3.6m to £2.8m); rest of world slumped by 60% (£725,655 to £288,859).
The only bright note was countries within the EU, which grew from £740,659 to £1.12m.
“Last.fm competes with other internet [music] providers, broadcast radio and other media providers for advertising spending,” the company said in its latest financial report. “As such, revenue decreased during the year and cost reduction plans continued throughout the year to minimise the impact of the lower revenues”.
Cost of sales almost halved from £5m to £2.78m year on year.
Staff numbers fell from 61 to 35 with the total cost of wages and salaries dropping from £3.7m to £2.75m.
Last.fm has moved to a collaboration model with services such as Spotify and Vevo, moving away from streaming itself in March this year and killing off its “subscription radio” service.
“Last.fm will benefit from significant cost savings by no longer streaming which significantly outweigh the associated loss of revenue,” the company said.
It now focuses on “scrobbling” – which builds a profile of the music a person listens to – music discovery and recommendations.
Net liabilities as at 31 December 2013 were £37.5m.
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