Rob Reid has stepped down as CEO of Listen.com, a company spokesman said Tuesday. Reid is now chairman of the board, while Listen.com President Sean Ryan shoulders the additional role of CEO.
The news comes less than two weeks after a second round of layoffs at the online syndicator of music content and tools. Thirty-five people, or about a quarter of the company's staff, were let go, leaving 105 employees.
Ryan points out that the change in management structure will free Reid to work on deals that push Listen.com further into the music-delivery space, which the company entered with its acquisitions of customizable-radio firm WiredPlanet and streaming technology maker TuneTo.
"We're constrained by a lot of outside issues – label relations, political, legal," Ryan said. "This gives Rob more time to spend on those outside areas, so I can focus on running the company."
Like many digital music firms, Listen.com, which started out two years ago as an online consumer directory for legal digital downloads, has been hit hard by the souring of the market. In response, the company shifted gears last fall and repositioned itself as a business-to-business syndicator.
The change in strategy didn't forestall a layoff of 42 people in January. However, with more than $50 million left in the bank from its latest round of financing in February 2000, Listen doesn't expect to need any more funding before it goes into the black "mid to late next year," said Ryan. The company's cash position also gives it the pick of dozens of struggling music companies looking for a buyer.
One area that Listen is no longer targeting, however, is peer-to-peer. In December, Listen bid for the assets of Scour, the Michael Ovitz-backed company whose legal run-in with the entertainment industry over its Napster-like file-sharing application drove it to bankruptcy. Listen.com was outbid by CenterSpan, which paid $9 million in cash and stock for Scour's brand, user list and technology.
Since then, the company has gotten over the p-to-p craze. "We concluded there is no opportunity in that space," Ryan said. "It's interesting technology, but the drawbacks – [concerns over] security, tracking, royalties, theft – outweigh the advantages."
Instead, Listen sees itself as providing a user interface to peer-to-peer and other companies offering music search or subscription services. Three weeks ago, Listen released a beta of Listen Seeker, a piece of software that automatically points to legal tracks and pulls news, reviews and tour dates on the artist a user searches for in another application such as Napster. The product is similar to one offered by Kick.com.
Ryan stresses that Listen Seeker is just a beta user-interface test. "The Seeker shows the type of interface we can put on a music-delivery system – it's not a stand-alone product." Ultimately, Ryan said, the company wants to syndicate a "complete music offering" to partners such as Yahoo and Lycos, and eventually to makers of set-top boxes and cell phones.
