Despite incursions made by music-streaming services iTunes, iHeartRadio,...

Despite incursions made by music-streaming services iTunes, iHeartRadio, Pandora and Spotify, the streaming market is still in its “MySpace phase” and it’s “too early to declare a winner,” Cumulus Media CEO Lew Dickey said Wednesday during a panel discussion at the Piper Jaffray investor conference in New York. Traditional radio remains “wide open,” Dickey said, despite Pandora’s increasing its share of U.S. listening to 8.91 percent in February from 8.6 percent the previous month and 8.1 percent in October. Cumulus bought a stake in online music service Rdio last year and is planning to sell advertising for a free, ad-supported U.S. version of the service that’s expected to debut later this year, Dickey said. Rdio typically carries a $5-$10 monthly fee in 31 global markets. Cumulus is creating a custom playlist of its syndicated services for Rdio subscribers. While Dickey argued that the streaming music field remains open, it’s “undeniable” that Pandora’s increased market share is “coming from broadcasters,” Pandora Vice President Dominic Paschel said. While 81 percent of Pandora’s 75.3 million active listeners in February -- those that use the service for 15 or more minutes in a given month -- come from mobile devices, the music service is expanding its foothold in the automotive market, Paschel said. It had 4 million active users in motor vehicles in December, up from 1 million at the start of 2013, he said. Pandora is available in 135 models of motor vehicle, up from 100 in December, Peschel said. The automotive market remains the main place consumers listen to broadcast radio, industry analysts have said. “We are moving much more into the digital area, but terrestrial broadcasting is still a great delivery system and people are still listening to it,” said Alpha Broadcasting CEO Larry Wilson, whose company operates 49 radio stations. With broadcast radio having withstood Sirius XM, Dickey was confident the industry would withstand a challenge from Pandora and its rivals and remain a profitable business. “It’s all based on content what people are looking for and it’s back to the $6 million hour of broadcast television versus the $200,000 of production on cable. Listeners and consumers understand the difference and ultimately gravitate toward quality. You can’t substitute a playlist which is static and punctuated by commercial announcements with the full production of a radio station that engages and entertains people.”