Streaming might be booming in the UK, but popular desktop radio service last.fm has been feeling the pinch. 

The CBS-owned service offers ad-free streaming of music content, programmed in line with each user’s individual tastes. Although the site is used by tens of millions of users across the globe each month, the company reported a pre-tax loss of £4.4m in 2011.

As The Guardian report, last.fm are to introduce a paywall in the UK, US and Germany for its radio service. Although a subscription service is currently available on the site, it will become mandatory from January 15 2013. Subscriptions currently only account for 23% of the service’s revenue.

That’s not all: the company is completely shutting down its radio operations in a majority of worldwide territories. Although the UK and the US will still have access to the service, users in most other countries will no longer be able to stream music on the site “due to licensing restrictions”.

According to a spokesperson: “We will continue to look at the state of the market in other territories and hope to expand again in future as it becomes more viable. When it can be done so economically we hope to be able to open streaming to a wider audience in the future.” The paywall has previously been introduced in New Zealand, Brazil, Australia and Canada.