Pandora has how launched its on-demand music streaming service, competing with Apple Music and Spotify. It costs the same $9.99/month as existing services (a price dictated by the labels, which receive most of the revenue). Anyone can get a free trial of either 30 or 60 days, and there’s a special deal for existing Pandora Plus subscribers …
This week Pandora is launching its on-demand music service with features like what other subscription services including Apple Music and Spotify offer. Before now Pandora has primarily served streaming radio stations based on artists and tracks. Pandora Premium opens the service’s catalog of music up to on-demand access for a monthly fee.
Brand loyalty consultancy Brand Keys says that Apple has topped the lists in three of the categories in which it competes: laptops, tablets and smartphones. It wasn’t quite a clean sweep, however – Apple Music lost out to Pandora in the online music category …
If you’re an Rdio user, you have a week to download your playlists before the service goes offline at 8pm ET/5pm PT on Tuesday 22 December. Although the company was acquired by Pandora last month, its new owners are not continuing the service, but instead incorporating some of its technology and talent.
You can download an archive of your collection, and also see your listening stats, by logging in at the company’s ‘farewell’ page.
Rdio has posted a few stats to the page, showing that the most-played album was Nothing Was The Same by Drake, while the most popular song was When I Was Your Man by Bruno Mars.
Via Engadget
Pandora announced today that it’s acquiring Rdio for $75 million with plans to integrate the competitive music streaming service’s technology into its own service pending the usual government approvals.
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Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine at Code Conference via Re/code
Pandora is announcing its Q2 2015 financial results today and as expected blamed the launch of Apple Music in June for low growth in listeners and an overall loss vs last quarter. While the company confirmed that it did indeed witness lower than normal growth numbers for the quarter, it described the overall impact of Apple Music as “muted”:
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While revealing its Q3 earnings earlier today, Pandora announced that it will pay $90 million to labels in royalties as a settlement to play music released prior to 1972. Federal copyright laws didn’t start protecting sound recordings until 1972, meaning that copyrights of clips released prior to then are governed by state laws (via WSJ).
Pandora stopped paying royalties on pre-1972 music a few years back and was subsequently sued by the Recording Industry Association of America. Pandora says that pre-1972 music accounts for just 5 percent of the music its service plays. The settlement prevents the parties from suing until the end of 2016, after which Pandora will have to negotiate a licensing deal.
Among the music companies settling with Pandora are Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, Sony Corp.’s Sony Music Entertainment, Access Industries’ Warner Music Group and ABKCO Music & Records. The settlement, which was negotiated over the past two weeks amounts to about 10% of Pandora’s annual revenue.
Pandora today noted that its quarterly loss increased in Q3 of 2015, but active listeners increased and revenue rose 30% to $311.6 million. Active listeners rose to 78.1 million, up from 76.5 in the year ago quarter. Total listener hours rose 3 percent in Q3 2015. The growth comes despite the recent launch of Apple Music, which currently has 6.5 million paying customers and 15 million users total.
Since Apple’s CarPlay feature first hit cars — with iTunes Radio built-in — whether or not Pandora Radio would ever support the infotainment platform has been a popular question among users. In the past Pandora has left the door open for CarPlay support at some point, noting that Apple controls which apps are allowed to work with it, and Pandora’s CFO went as far as promising it will support CarPlay earlier this year. Fulfilling that promise 7 months later, Pandora Radio has updated its iPhone app to totally support CarPlay:
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After a pilot of its new “Sponsored Listening” advertisements last year, streaming music service Pandora Radio announced today that it’s rolling out the feature to all advertisers and listeners in its mobile apps. The feature rewards users with an hour of ad-free, uninterrupted listening as long as they first interact with an ad for at least 15 seconds.
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Misfit, makers of the popular Flash and Shine wearables for fitness and sleep tracking, today launched a new iOS app that turns its Flash hardware into a remote control for a connected iPhone’s camera, music functions, and more.
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Apple Music was introduced yesterday at WWDC and has since prompted reactions from many other streaming music companies. When Apple enters a new market, it always shakes things up enough to warrant some concerns from its competitors and Apple Music is no different. Rdio, Spotify, and Pandora have each responded to the Apple Music announcement in their own way:
Apple is ready to show the first fruits of its Beats acquisition next week. As we first reported in early March, Apple is planning to introduce its long-awaited Beats-based streaming music service at its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, June 8th. Blending Apple interface design and features from the Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine-created Beats Music app, Apple’s service, known internally as “Apple Music,” is built to take on Spotify and Pandora with several new features and a subscription model. Additionally, Apple is working on overhauling its widely panned iTunes Radio service by striking deals with popular artists and DJs. Below, we detail Apple’s plans for both Apple Music and the new iTunes Radio in an extensive roundup.
The limited selection of CarPlay apps has not grown much since its launch, with one of the most prominent hold-outs being Pandora. In a recent interview with Fox Business, however, Pandora CFO Mike Herring said that the company plans to add CarPlay support soon. “We’ll definitely be in CarPlay,” Herring said in the interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q0yZomXuSw
Google today announced Google Cast for audio, which the company says takes advantage of Chromecast tech to send audio to third-party hardware like speakers, A/V receivers, and sound bars. The feature will allow users to tap a “cast” button from within music and radio apps on Android, iOS and the web to stream audio to Google Cast enabled speakers.
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Pandora is rolling out an updated version of its iPhone app with a strong emphasis on personalization.
Personalized genre and artist suggestions will now appear at the top of your list of stations, and a new thumbs-up icon on the now-playing screen gives you fast access to song ratings – as well as acting as a visual reminder that you only get the most from the service if you get into the habit of rating songs.
There’s also a modest visual redesign. The update will roll out to iPhones in the coming weeks (it’s not yet available from iTunes), with an iPad refresh to follow at a later date.
There had been speculation that last year’s launch of iTunes Radio might have threatened Pandora’s future, but following a move to drop its 40 hour/month listening limit, the company announced that it increased its listeners following the launch of Apple’s streaming service.
The Rdio music streaming service is preparing to release an updated version of its mobile app later today will place a new focus on its free “stations” feature as competitors like Spotify, Pandora, and Apple’s one-two punch of iTunes Radio and Beats Music crank up the pressure on the service.
Rdio claims its free music library is as much as fifteen times bigger than those of competing apps. Like other online radio services, the new Rdio will automatically create playlists and stations from that library based on a user’s music preferences. Curated stations from musicians and other celebrities will also be available, much like in iTunes Radio.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Ian Rogers, the head of Beats Music, will now also lead iTunes Radio following the Apple acquisition. Apple wants to increase collaboration between both Beats Music and iTunes Radio by having both streaming services led by Rogers. Up to now, iTunes Radio has been headed by Jeff Robin’s team, best known for creating the software that became iTunes.
The Journal says that Rogers’ leadership will increase ‘cohesion’ between the services, which currently offer a lot of app in their end-user experiences. It is still unclear whether Apple has plans to consolidate the brands.
T-Mobile has just announced at its “Uncarrier 5.0” event (which apparently double as the Uncarrier 6.0 event) that all streaming music services will now be free to stream on T-Mobile, including iTunes Radio. This also applies to Pandora, iHeartRadio, Slacker Radio, and Spotify.
Any streaming you do will always be done over the company’s fastest available network, and won’t count towards your high-speed data limit.
Customers can visit T-Mobile’s website to request new services to be added to the “music freedom” selection. As streaming services gain votes, they will be added to the program.
After introducing a new alarm clock feature for iPhone users back in December, streaming music service Pandora today updated its iPad app with the same functionality. The app already let users fall asleep to music using a Sleep Timer feature, and with today’s update to version 5.3 iPad users will now be able to set song or artist stations as alarm clocks.
The alarm clock feature also packs in the usual snooze feature and can be configured from Settings inside the Pandora app. The update also includes “other improvements and bug fixes” for both iPhone and iPad users. 
Also available starting today is a Pandora app for Pebble smartwatch users available through the app store within the Pebble Smartwatch app for iOS. Pandora announced the new feature on its blog today and noted Pebble is the first wearable platform that Pandora is debuting on:
Using the Pebble, you can view and change stations, thumb songs up and down, skip, play and pause tracks – all from your wrist! If you already have a Pebble that is paired to your mobile device, you should get a notification that you can install Pandora, or you can start the install process at any time from the Pebble Settings Page.
Pandora version 5.3 is available on the App Store now.
Start waking up to music you love – the Pandora alarm clock is now available for iPad
• Pick your your favorite station to play as your alarm
• Not ready to wake up? Adjust the snooze time to catch more zzz’s
• Use with the sleep timer to hear your music morning and night
Other improvements and bug fixes to give you the best listening experience
According to a new report from Billboard, Apple is considering launching an iTunes Store app on the Android platform to combat declining music sales on the digital platform. The report also says that Apple execs are in talks with high level label executives to discuss debuting an on-demand streaming service.
Apple has opened exploratory talks with senior label executives about the possibility of launching an on-demand streaming service that would rival Spotify and Beats Music, according to three people familiar with the talks. Apple is also thinking about adding an iTunes App for Android phones, the Google rival that has been growing faster than the iPhone, these sources said.
The move to an on-demand streaming service could transform iTunes Radio from the Pandora-like radio model to the more robust on-demand model used by Spotify, Rdio, Beats Music, and others.
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Two pieces of news out today related to the music streaming biz: Recode is reporting that Amazon is talking to music labels about a music streaming service that could be bundled with Prime subscriptions, while Pandora has announced it has grown to 250 million users in the US.
If Amazon is able to make deals with the music labels, Recode speculates that it could offer music streaming through its Prime subscriptions which currently only offers movies and TV shows as well as free two-day shipping for $79/ year. The report notes, however, that Amazon is running into some roadblocks with cutting deals:
Which doesn’t mean it will: One label source reports that Amazon isn’t close to getting a deal done, because its executives are asking for a substantial discount on the pricing the labels have given to other services, like Spotify, Rhapsody and Beats… Still, label talks have been going on for the past few months, sources say.
As for Pandora, that’s up from around 200 million users back in April of last year and since the launch of one of its biggest new competitors, Apple’s iTunes Radio, in September. Pandora also noted that “Listeners have now created over six billion stations.”
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The Chromecast, Google’s streaming HDMI dongle came out last summer. It is compatible with any Android device running 2.3 or later, iOS device with iOS 6 or 7, and any Mac or PC. Initially, users were able to stream Netflix or Youtube from an iOS device and Android device, Google Play Movies and Music only on Android, or cast websites using the Chrome browser on a computer. The Chromecast works differently from Airplay in that you can multitask and do other tasks on the device or you can let it go to sleep while streaming.
Very quickly after its release, Chromecast has received support for Hulu +, Pandora, and HBO GO. Last month a major update added ten new apps including Plex, Vevo, Songza, Red Bull TV, Post TV from the Washington Post, Viki, RealPlayer Cloud, Avia, Revision3 Internet Television and BeyondPod. The most recent update the Chromecast received allowed users to stream Google Play Movies and Music directly from the Chrome browser on a computer.
In this How-to, we’ll discuss how to setup the Chromecast, use it with a Mac and iOS device and explore its gaming potential.
The launch of iTunes Radio doesn’t look like the deathblow to Pandora that many suggested it would be. Today Mike Herring, the music streaming service’s CFO, said that since the launch of Apple’s competing product, Pandora has seen an increase in listeners. We’re not just talking about a fraction of a percent, either. According to Herring, who once called iTunes Radio a “credible threat” to his company, Pandora has seen a 9% increase in listening since iTunes Radio debuted.
[tweet https://twitter.com/JonErlichman/status/397516506247884800 align=’center’]
Part of the draw could be the fact that Pandora dropped its time-limited listening restrictions on free accounts just before iOS 7 and iTunes Radio became publicly available. This allowed Pandora listeners who preferred to continue using their existing stations rather than switching to a new service to listen to more music each month.
These newly unrestricted accounts also work where iTunes Radio doesn’t, such as Android phones or older iOS devices, meaning the overall reach of Pandora is considerably wider than that of iTunes Radio. This provides an incentive for users who have a variety of devices to use Pandora over Apple’s offering since their iTunes Radio stations cannot sync to all of their devices.
During Pandora’s earnings call today, the company’s CFO, Mike Herring, announced that the service will be dropping its 40 hours per month limit on mobile devices for free accounts. TechCrunch posted this statement:
When we introduced the 40 hour mobile listening limit, we were confident that our scale – over 7% of total radio listening and Pandora’s number one ranking in most major markets – would allow us to take this action without impacting our key monetization initiatives in driving the disruption of the radio advertising market and driving our mobile advertising leadership. As our results have shown, the continued strong growth in our advertising revenue allowed us to cover the increased royalty costs with dollars left over to invest back into the business.
With these tools in hand, and insight into how they work, we are resetting our levers in September. Notably, Pandora plans to eliminate the blanket 40-hour-per-month limit on free mobile listening effective September 1st.
The company also published a related press release :
Pandora (NYSE: P), the leading internet radio service, today announced it will remove the 40-hour-per-month limit on free mobile listening effective September 1, 2013.
“We’re pleased to once again maximize free listening for everyone on Pandora,” said Tim Westergren, Pandora’s founder. “The more than 70 million listeners that tune in every month will now have more time to hear the music they love, and thousands of working artists will reach more fans.”
The limit on free mobile listening was introduced in March 2013 to manage rapidly increasing royalty costs. While in place, this affected fewer than four percent of total monthly active listeners. The company continues to utilize multiple additional levers to carefully and effectively manage its content cost.
Pandora has been dealing with the balancing act of paying for content and pushing out as advertisements. Back in May, Bloomberg looked into the situation and found that some investors weren’t sure if the limit would also reduce the number of ads delivered to users. Only around 4% of its listeners were going over the cap at the time, but only a portion of those users would return and buy into a paid subscription after the cap was reintroduced on mobile devices back in February. At the same time, the introduction of the cap saw the service’s total listening hours drop around 5.1% within a month:
Pandora’s results since implementing the cap suggest the company is starting to contain content costs, its biggest expense, without alienating listeners. With fewer hours of use, investors are concerned that the company is also sacrificing advertising revenue, said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities Inc. in Los Angeles.
The company reported revenues of $162 million which is is up 58% YoY; however, iTunes Radio is expected to launch in just a few short weeks and we’ll find out at their next earnings call if Apple’s music streaming service affects revenue for Pandora. For its part, Apple has partnered with very large sponsors and secured multi-million dollar advertising deals for the iTunes Radio service.
Pandora is available free in the App Store. iTunes Radio will have a free version with ads, but users can listen ad-free by subscribing to the $24.99/year iTunes Match service.
Update: Also, Pandora’s iOS app has been updated to version 4.5 which includes a new sleep timer feature and additional bug fixes:
What’s New in Version 4.5
• Sleep timer with 15, 30, or 60 minute options to continue playing your favorite Pandora station while you fall asleep
• Bug fixes and improvements