UK streaming music service we7 has shifted its focus, launching a Pandora-esque Internet Radio Plus feature.

Yes, that means personalised radio, rather than its current model of on-demand streaming of songs and albums. However, we7 is stressing that one isn’t replacing the other: it intends to integrate both.

“We are not removing any of the great features that we7 already has but changing the focus and entry to we7 to reflect the way people want to access music,” says CEO Steve Purdham.

So how will it work? Users will be able to fire up Internet Radio Plus on the we7 site by entering an artist, song, album or genre and pressing the play button, to create a personalised radio channel based on that initial choice.

However, the on-demand aspect will be incorporated with the idea of ‘requests’ – deliberate use of radio lingo. While listening to their personal channel, users will be able to request a specific song or album, and have it played there and then.

Users will also mark artists, songs, albums and playlists as ‘Loved’ to build their profile, and will be able to share their personalised channel of Loved music with friends via Facebook, Twitter and email.

we7 plans to add in news, entertainment sport and weather elements to make its new service feel even more like radio. And that’s the comparison Purdham is keen to make.

“Music consumption is moving rapidly to an Internet base but in the world of radio there has been little or no innovation to capitalise on this new potential,” he says.

“The Internet has been viewed as just another traditional radio device. Great pioneering work done by Last.fm in the UK and Pandora in the US has shown that the potential is much bigger and we7 intend to go further to deliver real benefits to the next generation of Internet radio listeners.”

Radio isn’t a new idea for we7. The site introduced a basic radio feature in January this year, and hasn’t promoted it heavily.

However, Purdham says that by September, more than 55% of tracks listened to on we7 were being accessed through the radio feature, rather than on-demand.

This is good for we7 for other reasons than simply serving its users’ demands, of course.

“I have to admit that this positive consumer shift to Radio streams does benefit the economics of the we7 financial model,” says Purdham. “It’s brilliant when the needs of the business and consumer demand align in this way.”

Pandora famously pulled out of the UK in January 2008, claiming the per-track performance minima rates demanded by PPL and the MCPS/PRS Alliance (now PRS for Music) were “far too high to allow ad supported radio to operate”.

we7 clearly feels things have changed enough to make the model – tweaked with a built-in on-demand element – workable in 2011 and beyond.

It may well be more workable than pure on-demand ad-supported music. we7’s most recent set of financial results revealed a £3.66 million loss for 2009, based on turnover of £361,081, cost of sales of £1.51 million and administrative expenses of £2.52 million.

At the time, the company claimed that it was on course to be “cash-positive” by the end of 2011. It’s clear that we7 sees Internet Radio Plus as a step in that direction.

Music Ally will be exploring the implications of we7’s move in greater detail in our Music Ally Report this week, which is sent to paying subscribers. Click here to register for a free trial.

Tags: we7

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 at 12:01 am and is filed under Digital Music News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.