Old Microsoft-owned music streaming service MixRadio terminated

It’s been a rather interesting run for MixRadio but after several years of name and ownership changes, the service is finally being put down according to an official press release by the service’s current owner, LINE Corporation, this morning.

The official statement gave several reasons for the discontinuation of the music streaming service such as its performance (i.e. popularity with users), the increasing cost of participating in the music streaming market, the overall future direction of LINE Corporation as a whole, and a difficulty in guaranteeing future growth in the MixRadio platform.

While the discontinuation of MixRadio may come as an inconvenience to a small group of users, the reasons given by LINE for the decision are completely believable and make perfect sense due to the massive popularity of rival streaming services such as Pandora, Spotify, and even Microsoft’s own first party music streaming service Groove Music (previously, Xbox Music) and iTunes Radio.

MixRadio began life as the Windows Phone streaming service, Nokia Music, before being rebranded as Nokia MixRadio. In July 2014, Microsoft revealed plans to sell the service and several months later LINE was revealed to be the new owner. Named simply, MixRadio, LINE released both an iOS and Android app for the service in March 2015 and, in November of the same year, announced that a release of a Windows 10 MixRadio app was expected in the following months. The Windows 10 app never saw release and just three months later the service was discontinued completely.

LINE will continue to operate its LINE MUSIC service which it operates in both Japan and Thailand. LINE’s messaging app continues to be increasingly popular, especially in Asian markets, and continues to evolve as more than a simple messaging service with apps and games proving a major draw for users.

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