Line Pulls The Plug On MixRadio

Poor MixRadio. for years it's been passed around, with hopes of finding a permanent home, where it can serve up music for the masses. Unfortunately, instead of finally taking off and making it big, it would seem that the final nail has been driven into its coffin today.

If you don't recall its long and winding history, MixRadio actually started off as a Nokia project, and was simply called "Nokia Music." The company released it back in 2007, when internet streaming was really just starting to gain traction. Pandora had only been around for a couple of years, and Spotify hadn't even launched yet. When Microsoft bought Nokia for $7 billion back in 2014, the service came along with the rest.

So what do you do when you get something that you already own, as part of a larger package deal? Well, if you can't seem to find a good use for it, you just wrap it up and re-sell it to someone who might actually make use of it. And that's exactly what Microsoft did. They sold it to Line later the same year.

Line is a company known for its popular messaging app, similar to WhatsApp. If you've not heard of it, that's okay. The app is most popular in Asian countries, and hasn't really made waves here in the US. The company re-launched MixRadio last year on iOS and Android, with the hopes that it would catch on outside of their current region. Unfortunately, it seems that no one wants MixRadio after all.

Line announced today that they would be discontinuing the MixRadio streaming service, citing its performance and "the financial challenges posed by the music streaming market" as the main reasons for shutting it down. If you are one of the people who has been enjoying MixRadio, it's not going dark just yet, though the company stated that it would be happening in the coming weeks.