Music streaming platform 8tracks shutting down on December 31, grab your playlists before that

This new year’s eve may not be welcomed well at least by users/fans of 8tracks. That’s because, after serving for more than a decade, the Internet radio and playlist website 8tracks.com has now declared it will be breathing its last breath this year, on December 31.

The information was shared by co-founder David Porter, in the form of a blogpost, saying:

We’re sad to announce, however, that the company and its streaming service will wind down with the end of the decade, on December 31st, 2019.

Revealing the reason for closure, Porter shared the company is having a tough time to cover royalty payments due to their declining listenership, which eventually led to a declining free and ad-supported audience. Here’s how they explained their situation:

We’re nearly out of cash and can’t afford to pay current and past royalties, which we expected we’d be able to pay off in whole or in part through the ABC process mentioned above. But the reason we fell behind in royalties is because we steadily lost the scale of listenership necessary to sell advertising with a direct sales team at CPMs that would cover compulsory royalty rates with a solid margin. And the steady decline in our free, ad-supported audience resulted in a smaller base of active listeners that might eventually be converted to 8tracks Plus, our ad-free subscription offering.

Before the closure of operation on December 31, users can save their existing 8tacks playlists, by pushing an email to the support, along with your 8tracks user name. In response, they’ll be provided the information about each of their playlists in the form of an email.

Apart from that, users also have an option to export their playlists to Spotify by choosing the option “Save playlist to Spotify” that can be found on top of the mix art. But this option comes with a caution. Here’s how Porter’s post explains it:

This process isn’t perfect, as some tracks aren’t available on Spotify, and others are available but aren’t matched to Spotify’s catalog. But 80-90% of tracks in a given playlist should match, for most genres.Note that we can’t make any assurance as to how long the website may remain up and running, so please act now if you’d like to migrate your favorite playlists over to Spotify.

Before you begin the search for 8tracks alternatives, some of the service suggestions that have come across are Playmoss, Deezer, Libre.fm, Jamendo, Tidal, and others. If you have any other alternative to suggest, feel free to share your opinion with others in the comments section below.

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