January 08, 2008

By By Antony Bruno, Las Vegas

Personalized Internet radio service Pandora is closing its last non-US service next week, citing royalty fees too high to remain operational. The development came to light in an e-mail to members from co-founder Tim Westergren.

"Both the PPL and the MCPS/PRS Alliance have demanded per-track performance minima rates which are far too high to allow ad supported radio to operate," he wrote. "We have been told to sign these totally unworkable license rates or switch off, non-negotiable."

The US service will remain in service. Pandora closed all other international versions of its service last July for similar licensing reasons.

The site will block connections to UK addresses beginning Jan. 15.

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