Ruled that Christine Lagarde will have to stand trial in the case stemming from her time as frances finance minister. She is accused of negligence that pave the way for massive corruption of government payout to a tycoon. Virginia senator tim kaine is emerging as the leading contender to join the democratic ticket as Hillary Clintons running mate according to two democrats who both cautioned that mrs. Clinton could still change directions. The announcement of her pick could come today during a Campaign Event in tampa, florida. It follows the just completed republican convention. Global news 24 hours a day powered by 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries, i am mark crumpton. Emily im emily chang and this is bloomberg west. Coming up, verizon can see the finish line in the race for yahoo details on the Telecom Giants 5 billion pitch. Pandora opens up. One million active listeners have tuned out. Founder and ceo Tim Westergren explains why he is not worried. And its not a michael bay movie without an epic explosion. Now you can get to experience them in Virtual Reality. Details on how the director is stepping up his v. R. Game. First to our lead. Verizon is on the verge of winning the battle for yahoo verizon is nearing a deal to buy yahoo s core internet assets for 5 billion. At this stage, the deal does not include yahoo s patents. The deal may be announced in coming days, ending a monthlong bidding process. Im joined by our tech editor. Sir alistair, when we would know for sure . Alistair so far what we know is that barring any lastminute disasters that verizon has won it, in a combination of more money but also strategic value. Put a bit more cash on the block. Emily now, the information reported that yahoo would not be a good deal for anyone. Is this really a good idea for verizon . They already have a legacy asset in aol. They have been transforming that asset. Does this combination really make sense . Neil i think it does. First of all, you get larger scale in terms of a media asset. Secondly, you have some pretty complementary products. Verizons aol does really well with political and entertainment and yahoo does really well with broader views, finance and sports. Finally on the backend, you have the Technology Ad platform or you can sell that to agencies and really hit a broader audience. Emily i did speak to Arianna Huffington and recently aol bought the huffington post. Take a listen to what she had to say about the synergy. Arianna the synergy verizon is a huge distribution potential for us. Especially, we are moving more and more into media. We launched go 90, which is their video play, and have produced and paid for great content from many providers. So, this is fantastic for huffpost because it gives us great distribution. Emily can verizon plus yahoo become a great content Distribution Platform . Alistair they have about one billion monthly viewers. They have a smaller mobile audience that is growing quite fast. That is where they are going to need to improve. The ad tech stuff on top could be a great combination, but really they are paying with aol and yahoo , they are paying 10 billion to basically cut 1 3 of google who are way, way ahead. It is going to be a tough growth. Emily is a 5 billion pricetag a good deal . We originally reported verizon may not be considering the real estate asset. It includes the core business but does not include yahoo s i. T. Neil if you look at what verizon paid for aol, this is a slight premium to that. And you are getting a much larger base of users. Basically, a better brand. Emily what happens to the other brands at yahoo . Tumblr, crunchy roll . Neil we have seen with aol when Tim Armstrong took over, he started to dismantle aol and sell off the brands that were not core to the mission. If tumblr is not making a lot of money, they will sell that. Emily interesting. What about Marissa Mayer . If verizon was a winner, Marissa Mayer would not likely stay on. And Tim Armstrong would run yahoo what do we know . Alastair she had a very tough job, i would argue, running yahoo i imagine she is going to be looking elsewhere afterwards. I suspect almost any tech company would have her. Emily exactly, what is next for her . Should become, does she go into Venture Capital . Does she go to run another Big Tech Company . Alastair i think she will probably pass on an opportunity to run a big Legacy Technology company. She could maybe, she would be a great Venture Capitalist maybe for a while. Then i suspect longerterm she is going to be running a Big Tech Company that is hopefully growing this time round. Emily i know she does have a passion for new products. Before she joined yahoo she did a lot of angel investing on the side. Neil, what do you think her reputation will be on the street after this is said and done . Neil fairly mixed. She came into yahoo with a whole aspiration to really grow this business. All thats happened is that revenues have continued to decline. The fact she was able to salvage some value will be positive, but her track record is not that great. Emily we are going to be watching. Sometime early next week, we presume we will see some sort of climax after all of this time. Thank you both. Well, paypal cofounder and Venture Capitalist peter thiel became the first speaker ever to declare he is gay in a speech at the Republican National convention on thursday. Every american has a unique identity. I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a republican. But most of all, i am proud to be an american. Emily later in the night, republican president ial nominee donald trump pledged to protect gay citizens after a nightclub shooting in orlando. The human rights campaign, which endorses democratic president ial candidate hillary clinton, said it was disappointed with both speeches. The group says thiel should have used the speech to push for equality and trump was using the orlando shooting for political gain. Coming up, pandoras revenues fall short as listeners tune out. Our interview with pandora donor founder and ceo Tim Westergren next. We are watching paypal dropping on concern about the cost implications of its new agreement with visa. Shares closed down 6 from thursday. This is bloomberg. Emily now to our interview with pandora founder and ceo Tim Westergren. Shares plunged after pandora reported revenue that fell short of estimates. By the end of the day, up over 2 . It lost more than one million previous listeners but listener hours increased 7 . We got started by asking westergren how he makes sense of these numbers. Mr. Westergren weve been signaling we expected to be flat for a while. Really we are surrounded by a glut of free Ondemand Services we cannot compete with yet. We are on our way to do that. But i think the growing engagement is a really positive signal for us. Our core listener base listens more and more. We just crossed the 24 hour a month threshold. That is a reflection of product improvements, our team has grown, more distribution. We feel really good about the core product and cannot wait to offer the more complete marketplace to compete. Emily 4 billion by 2020, but Revenue Growth is decelerating and now we are seeing the listeners fall. Why should we trust your plan . Mr. Westergren lets start with the base. So, we have about 100 Million People coming to pandora. And their listenership is we have had a huge investment. Rpms are growing. As we look ahead, as we expand the product and we are diversifying from advertising and subscriptions, we are going to start balancing business, we are optimizing a good 20 year on year. I think the business is in good shape. Emily you have made acquisitions. You are working on an Ondemand Service. What will be the key differentiator . There are so many Ondemand Services. Apple is reinventing its music business. Spotify is spotify. What is going to make yours different . Mr. Westergren a lot to bring to the table. This is not going to be a me, too, product. Ondemand services are 30 million songs and good luck. That is not what you need for the average consumer. Pandora brings this enormous listener base about which we know a ton. When you come to pandoras Ondemand Service, we will be able to curate that and make the Ondemand Service as easy and intuitive as we made radio. The music will magically appear and will be easy to use, which i think reduces the problem that needs solving right now. A lot of data, a huge audience, and the ability to deliver our products will be differentiated. Emily do you plan to have a tiered service that will keep users engaged with the radio product . Mr. Westergren you start with this foundation of 100 Million People who listen 24 hours a month, about whom you know a ton. This is about adding the upsell opportunity. So we can speak to you in the context of your radio experience and say, we have noticed this about you. You want to do this as well . Subscribe to pandora. We can find the right ways to hook people in. The Music Industry is seeing we are incremental to the business. We are going to solve the biggest problem how do you take that mass population and bring them into the services . Emily what are the key sticking points with the industry, with the labels and the artists right now . Mr. Westergren the key sticking points we feel confident based on the progress of the last few months, a great winwin. Part of what is taking time, as we did not come with a cookiecutter deal that came before us. We want to offer a more considered product that requires additional features. That makes time to evangelize and explain. They are beginning to understand the opportunity we bring. Emily there is an ongoing review of publishing royalties for streaming services. How could that impact . Mr. Westergren the big piece is really on the performance side. That is what we are negotiating directly with labels right now. I think we are also increasingly confident we can sign deals that preserve the longterm economics, which is very critical for us as we diversify the business. Emily on this report from the wall street journal, that you guys got an offer from sirius xm. What happened . Mr. Westergren the ceo part of my job is to look after longterm value, myself and the board. That is the lens that makes all our decisions. We have a strong core business. Again, i wish i could show you the product we are going to launch. It is going to be something else. We are bringing so much to that product. I think we are going to reinvent the space. Emily this is a question you feel that many times over the years. I have asked you this question many times, but are you open to the offers that cross your desk . Would you ever consider selling . Mr. Westergren again, my job is to look after longterm shareholder value. A very strong, independent board. We take all that seriously. That is how we make our decisions. Emily we are at the height of the political season. You once told me that pandora can tell if you are a democrat or republican. How can you tell . Mr. Westergren if you combine your zip code with the style of music youre listening to, we can predict your political affiliation with a 90 accuracy. It is an amazing platform for political advertising. We see spending on pandora from local and county supervisor races all the way to president ial. It is amazing. The effect of targeting. We have a very Strong Political foundation, the right product. This year has been unusual. And we signal that in the call. Its reflected in our secondhalf guidance, because the spending on the republican side has been slow to mature. We expect a strong season. Emily we reported the president ial campaign, super pacs have been spending on pandora because of the ability to get targeted advertising. I am wondering if you have seen any interesting trends when it comes to political advertising and how much that has really helped the ad budget . Mr. Westergren the visibility of the platform in d. C. Has grown across the republican and democrat spectrum. Candidates are getting more savvy about digital. They know how to use it. And so, it is a tailwind for us from a revenue standpoint. Emily you said half of radio listening occurs in the car. What kind of traction are you seeing in the car in particular . Mr. Westergren a lot. North of 190 models have embedded pandora functionality. Unique activations. 19 millionwe are looking for the arrival of the connected car. We are waiting for that. The day when you get in the car and turn it on and pandora starts playing. When you get to that point, it is a whole new ballgame for us. So, we are lockstep with them as they develop the technology and helping be part of that development, actually. But we want to be right there for when that nirvana arrives where the car is like a rolling computer and pandora can be there easy to use on the dashboard. Emily our exclusive interview with pandora ceo Tim Westergren. Coming up, the apple watch. Sales are down 55 . We discuss what it means for the company next. This is bloomberg. Emily new information about the ultrasecretive apple car. Previous cars had set a 2020 release date. According to a new report, that date has been pushed back to 2021. Little is known about the car. Nicknamed project hyphen. It will be an all electric car with a focus whatever it ends up looking like, will have to wait longer to see it. Smart watch shipments are down for the Second Quarter this year. According to new numbers, sales have fallen by almost 1 3 in large part due to the apple watch. Market share sales for the device are down 55 compared to the same quarter a year ago. We have a Research Manager and joins us now to break down the data. Why such a dramatic drop for apple in particular . Take a look at where we are right now. We had no product refresh in the Second Quarter of 2016. Rewind the clock back that has been the watch launch. That is when the was a lot of anticipation, preorders. When you do not have that same quarter kind of fulfillment schedule, you are bound to see that kind of decline yearoveryear. So, all eyes are on apple, is it going to be during the Third Quarter, fourth quarter, if it all . If so, what is it going to look like and what is able to do the first generation didnt . Emily did the competitor come out with competing products . Didnt samsung, with noble, garman they did not see much of , a change at all. Apple had their 55 drop in a lot of the vendors, samsung, lenovo, they all posted doubledigit gains yearoveryear. That says to me, even though apple does get more than the lions share of attention, the competition is not staying still and they are doing their own thing to not just remain relevant but also to establish themselves. Look, if you took a look at the samsung gear s 2, you can hook it up to your cellular account over at t, tmobile, sprint and verizon. You could make phone calls and get data without having to go through your smart phone. It is a big step. Emily how do you think the next generation will change things . Will we see a big rebound . In terms of hardware, i do not see a lot of changes taking place. This is still a first generation device. I do not think apple wants to alienate or disappoint anyone who got the first generation apple watch with a brandnew body type and change all the physical aspects about it. Instead, i am taking a cue from a worldwide developer conference from apple. The emphasis is on software. On having more sensors, having it easier user interface. Be able to navigate through a lot quickly. Apple is responding to a lot of the criticism that many people had. Is that going to be enough to say to a lot of people, this is the watch i have been waiting for . My guess is probably not, especially among apple fans who take the approach of, i am going to wait for that Third Generation device. Then im going to make my move. Emily the apple watch in its first year still outsold the original iphone in its first year. We are in a different time. Do you see the watch becoming a much larger category, or remaining fairly niche . I think for now, it will remain fairly niche. If you take a look at the Financial Results we will see next week, my suspicion is that you will see a lot of the apple iphone accounting for the majority of revenue in vines than volumes than the others category where the watches are. If you compare the revenue numbers, the watch in that other category does not hold a candle to what you see for the iphone shipments. For now i think it is just going to be a niche category, among the loyalist fans out there till it becomes more userfriendly, massmarket from the. Massmarket friendly then a lot of innovation goes into it. Emily theres a niche category for apple. The iphone makes up 65 of business. The watch makes up 5 . They are relying more on services and the Services Part of their business. Does it matter right now . I think it does matter. Because look, this is a market that is still very much in its initial stages right now. For a company like apple to lure roar into the market and establish itself as one of the major players, that says a lot. If you think about the overall Digital Strategy for apple,the apple watch is yet another reason you do to keep you within that Apple Ecosystem or perhaps to switch over. I think it will be more of the former. Even though it is a niche, i think what we were hoping to see this year and into the next coupl