Top Sling TV Executive Roger Lynch Joins Pandora As President And CEO

Roger Lynch, founding CEO of the Dish-owned skinny bundle service Sling TV, has been appointed president and CEO of digital radio and music streaming platform Pandora. Lynch officially joins the company on Sept. 18, and will also become a member of Pandora’s board of directors — alongside Snap Inc. chairman Michael Lynton.

Interim CEO Naveen Chopra, who has served at the helm of Pandora since June 2017, will resume his role as CFO.

“With a massive, diverse, and highly engaged audience, a market-leading digital advertising business, a best-in-class product portfolio, and an extremely passionate and talented group of people, Pandora is well-positioned to capture an even greater market opportunity,” said Lynch, who is a lifelong musician and music fan, in a statement.

Prior to Sling TV, Lynch served as EVP of advanced technologies for Dish Network, and chairman and CEO of U.K.-based Video Networks International

, an IPTV provider. Lynton, for his part, served as CEO of Sony Entertainment for five years before joining Snap as chairman in 2016. Prior to his work at Sony, he served as CEO of AOL Europe, president of AOL International and Time Warner International, and CEO of Penguin Publishing.

The new hires arrive as Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren departed his CEO post in June after SiriusXM acquired a 19% stake in the company and three seats on its board, Variety reports. In June, Pandora also received a $480 million investment from SiriusXM, and sold its Ticketfly property to Eventbrite for $200 million. Despite a competitive industry led by Spotify and Apple Music, Pandora generated $5 billion in revenue and $746 million in net income last year, and last announced 31.6 million total subscribers.