Last.fm

In 2002 Felix Miller, Martin Stiksel, and Richard Jones founded Last.fm in a living room in Whitechapel, east London; it began as an internet radio station and music community site. Its operating company, Last.fm Limited, was incorporated in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2002.⁠[1][2][3][4][5]

Last.fm vice president of product Michael Horan said that when the service launched in 2002, iTunes did not yet exist and streaming services were small, and that Last.fm set out to help people keep track of what they listened to from many scattered sources; it was also one of the first global services to offer a lean-back experience in which choosing a favorite artist immediately started an endless stream of related music.⁠[6][6][6][6]

In 2005 Last.fm incorporated Richard Jones’s Audioscrobbler project for recording and charting users’ listening habits; Last.fm’s player plug-ins, originally created for Audioscrobbler, tapped into the user’s music player, noted every song played, displayed a range of listening statistics, and recommended tracks and artists based on the interests of users with similar habits. In its early days the service suffered regular database crashes, and users lost listening data on several occasions. The venture capital firm Index Ventures was an early investor with $5 million.⁠[4][7][7][4][8]

On May 30, 2007, CBS Corporation announced the acquisition of Last.fm for $280 million in cash. At the time Last.fm had more than 15 million active users in more than 200 countries, and its events listing could recommend more than 200,000 festivals and music events worldwide. Under the deal, the team, including the three founders, would continue to run the site independently and work with CBS divisions to apply its community-building and technology expertise to CBS’s online and mobile businesses.⁠[8][9][9][9][9]

CBS chief executive Les Moonves said Last.fm’s demographics fit perfectly with CBS’s goal of attracting younger viewers and listeners and that the acquisition was a huge step in CBS’s strategy of transitioning from a content company into an audience company. After the acquisition, Last.fm kept its London base and much of its independence, and the corporate backing made the site more stable.⁠[9][9][4]

In 2009 Last.fm began charging for its radio service: users outside the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany had to pay €3 a month.⁠[10]

That February, TechCrunch, citing an unnamed source, alleged that Last.fm had handed user data to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to track listeners of the leaked U2 album No Line On The Horizon; Last.fm chief information officer Richard Jones denied the claim that month. TechCrunch later alleged that CBS had taken the data without Last.fm’s knowledge, which was also denied, and the matter was never substantiated.⁠[1][1][4][2]

On June 10, 2009, chief executive Felix Miller, chief operating officer Martin Stiksel, and chief information officer Richard Jones announced in a joint blog post that they were leaving Last.fm, staying on as consultants until September. They wrote that after two years running Last.fm within CBS it was time to begin handing over the reins, and that users had more than doubled in the previous 12 months to an all-time high of 37.3 million monthly unique visitors. CBS Interactive head Quincy Smith said a new leadership team of more than one person would be hired.⁠[1][2][2][1]

On December 13, 2012, Last.fm announced that from January 15, 2013, its radio service would end in most countries and that desktop listening would become a paid feature in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany (web listening there remained free); paid radio would also continue in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Brazil. Last.fm attributed the cutbacks to licensing restrictions and to factors affecting its business differently in different parts of the world.⁠[10][10][10][10]

On March 26, 2014, Last.fm announced that it would end its subscription radio streaming service on April 28, with refunds available to paying users; it then focused on its core scrobbling feature, with recommended listening provided through third-party services such as a YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry-powered player or SpotifySpotifySpotify is an audio streaming subscription service offering on-demand music, podcasts, and audiobooks through a free ad-supported service and a paid Premium subscription. Its parent company, Spotify Technology S.A., is incorporated in Luxembourg, has its principal operations in Stockholm, Sweden, and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker SPOT). It helped move the recorded-music business from buying and owning music to on-demand streaming and is one of the largest audio streaming subscription services by users.Open the full entry. Users no longer needed to install a desktop plug-in and could simply enter their Last.fm username in the settings of services such as Spotify and Sonos to record their listening.⁠[11][11][11][11]

Last.fm Limited is controlled by Last.fm Acquisition Limited (more than 75% of shares); in the UK Companies House register of persons with significant control, the latter’s controlling party was first CBS Corporation, then Paramount Global from December 4, 2019, and Paramount Skydance Corporation from August 7, 2025.⁠[12][12][13][13][13]

When Last.fm turned 20 in November 2022, its users were still scrobbling hundreds of thousands of times a day. The third-party Discord bot .fmbot, maintained by a Netherlands-based developer named Thom, brought Last.fm listening data into the chat app and had more than 400,000 total users and about 40,000 daily users, often in communities built around specific artists or genres where members compare listening statistics.⁠[7][7][7][7][7]

Michael Horan likened Last.fm to a “musical passport” that follows users as they move between streaming services and said abandoning the radio business had been the right decision, because today’s listeners want to be more actively involved in deciding what plays.⁠[6][6][6]

On May 27, 2026, Last.fm announced “a new chapter as an independent company”: ownership had changed, but user accounts and scrobbles, data and privacy settings, Pro subscriptions and billing, and the product team all remained the same, and it said it would share more about its plans in the following weeks. This ended the period of corporate ownership that began with the 2007 CBS acquisition and, through a series of mergers and restructurings, ended with Paramount Skydance. The financial terms of the transaction and the new ownership structure were not disclosed.⁠[14][14][14][15][15]

In the UK Companies House register, from May 26, 2026, the controlling party of Last.fm Acquisition Limited changed from Paramount Skydance Corporation to Scrobble Group Limited (more than 75% of shares), a company incorporated in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2026. Last.fm said that as an independent company it would focus on listening insights and community features and would continue supporting third-party tools built on its API.⁠[13][16][17][17]

When a user plays a song and Last.fm records it on the user’s profile, that is called a “scrobble.” Users can connect services such as Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music to Last.fm, or use its web client, apps, and browser plug-ins to record their listening; Last.fm uses this to generate real-time statistics, send weekly reports, keep a full listening history, and recommend new music and events.⁠[3][3][18][18]

The basic service is free; the paid Last.fm Pro costs $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year and offers features such as editing scrobbles, changing usernames, advanced statistics and historical listening reports, and ad-free browsing.⁠[18][19][19][19][19]

Last.fm: Official website: https://www.last.fm/ (opens in a new window).⁠[18]

X: Public account: https://x.com/lastfm (opens in a new window)⁠[18]

Bluesky: Public account: https://bsky.app/profile/last.fm (opens in a new window)⁠[18]

YouTube: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/lastfm (opens in a new window)⁠[18]