UPDATE: Pandora shutting Australian operation as US CEO said to be on the way out

BREAKING: AdNews reports Pandora is shuttering its Australian operation. The move comes not long after the departure of MD Jane Huxley, who has not been replaced, but also after the announcement of several commercial partnerships in the local market, including with Rolling Stone Australia and Woolworths. 

More details to come.

ORIGINAL STORY: Shares of Pandora jumped overnight by 4.5% to $8.65 following reports that its founder and CEO Tim Westergren (pictured) is leaving the company and that new investors Sirius XM could exert more influence on its future direction.

Westergren, who returned as CEO in early 2016 after a series of CEOs walked the plank, plans to leave the company once a replacement is found – possibly imminently.

The stories about Westergren come two weeks after satellite radio subscription business Sirius XM Holdings Inc agreed to inject $480 million in return for a 19% stake. Sirius XM now will get three of the nine seats on Pandora’s board.

Sirius XM is a well-run business. It generated $5 billion in revenue and $746 million in net income in 2016; it had 31.6 million subscribers at the end of Q1 of 2017, and expects to add 1.3 million paying subscribers in 2017.

Sirius XM’s owners Greg Maffei and John Malone are impressed by the fact Pandora has 80 million monthly users.

But obviously they need to stop Pandora from bleeding. 

They’ve also made it clear that Pandora’s launching of an on-demand service, Pandora Premium, was a dumb move, given that the space is well and truly dominated by Spotify and (to a slightly lesser extent) Apple Music.

Their plan is to integrate Pandora into its own satellite radio service. Pandora’s personalised music preference offerings to its customers is certainly something that Sirius XM can use to drive advertising. 

This is essential because much of Sirius’ business is dependent on the automotive market, and it needs to find new revenue streams as this market is finding new internet access via other companies.