Read Eric Rhoads' Blog
Will More Consumers Pay for Pandora?
2-27-2013
Founder Tim Westergren is hoping at least a small percentage of Pandora's overall subscriber base will pay if they listen a lot. In his most recent blog Westergren tells subscribers they will no longer have unlimited free listening. Pandora will cut you off after 40 hours of mobile listening. He says that affects less then 4% of Pandora subscribers and the reason is the cost of content. "Pandora's per-track royalty rates have increased more than 25% over the last 3 years, including 9% in 2013 alone and are scheduled to increase an additional 16% over the next two years. After a close look at our overall listening, a 40-hour-per-month mobile listening limit allows us to manage these escalating costs with minimal listener disruption."
Westergren says the average listener spends approximately 20 hours listening to Pandora across all devices in any given month. "For listeners who do hit the limit, we have a variety of options available to keep the music you love flowing. Listen for free for as many hours as desired on desktop and laptop computers; pay $0.99 for unlimited listening for the remainder of that month, or subscribe to Pandora One for unlimited listening and no advertising."
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(2/28/2013 1:06:00 PM) Exactly Scott - Pandora is selling a stock, not a product. And the only ones buying their BS are the bitter ex-radio hacks we flushed out of the industry. They are either foolish enough to believe Pandora or blinded by rage against radio because no one valued their "smooth segues". |
| - Realist |
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(2/28/2013 11:42:23 AM) Basically they are admitting that the business model doesn't work,,but can't come out and get rid of free service at once, or the stock would hit bottom, which is about all the management at Pandora care about |
| - Scott |
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(2/28/2013 10:56:41 AM) Obviously the Pandora business model is still evolving. How long before Pandora starts airing 12 minutes of commercials per hour to stay viable? |
| - Curtis P. |
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(2/28/2013 9:43:08 AM) It's going to be interesting to see the true value of Pandora to their listeners. My instinct tells me Mr. Westergren is in for a rude awakening on paid subscriptions. If it works as well as newspaper paywalls, they're going to have to find another solution. Hey! I've got it! Kick your listeners off at 40 hours and regular terrestrial Radio will take care of them! :--)) |
| - Charlie Ferguson |
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(2/28/2013 8:41:47 AM) I guess this means the number of unique users will go up...I mean the number of individual users with more than one email address. |
| - Jim |
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