Tag: pandora

Pandora’s radio data now included in Billboard Hot 100

Despite recent layoffs and the fact that it only launched a streaming service last month , Pandora is a giant player in the internet radio market. Billboard unveiled a partnership with the service for its Hot 100 chart, and says it immediately impacted 35 songs. It pushed nine of those up by five or more spots in the rankings, including Sex With Me from Rihanna and Rob $tone’s Chill Bill , which leaped 10 places. Lady Gaga’s Million Reasons , meanwhile, is now on the Hot 100 thanks to Pandora, Billboard says. Though Pandora recently launched a $10 Premium streaming service based on its Rdio acquisition , it won’t be available to the public until later this year. Still, it has a very consequential 78 million users and 4.3 million subscribers to its $5 Pandora Plus (not-on-demand) radio service. “Pandora is now the number one radio station in 87 US markets and represents roughly 10 percent of all radio listening, ” says Pandora CEO Tim Westergren. That’s why Pandora had such an immediate impact, even services with many more subscribers like Spotify and Apple Music already affect the chart. Pandora data will also be included in Billboard’s streaming and formula-based charts, including country, rock, R&B/Hip-Hop, Rap and Dance/Electronica. Despite the boost, Pandora announced earlier this month that it had laid off 7 percent of its workforce, due to a big increase in competition from Apple Music, Spotify and other services. On top of the $75 million spent on Rdio, it also completely revamped its site late last year and is no doubt spending big to launch Pandora Premium streaming. The company is reportedly looking for a buyer, with Sirius XM rumored to be the leading candidate so far. It may be able to take some hope from Tidal, which just sold a big chunk of itself to Sprint for a reported $200 million. Source: Billboard

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Pandora’s radio data now included in Billboard Hot 100

Pandora’s new website points to an on-demand future

Pandora has generated a lot of buzz about its rumored on-demand platform based on Rdio, and is working on an extensive re-branding ahead of that. It recently unveiled a new logo , and today launched a completely revamped website. As part of the new changes, you’ll now see radio stations in a grid of album art instead of an ordered list, much like with Google Play Music . The control bar with thumbs up/thumbs down, play, pause and song information has moved from the top of the screen to the very bottom now as well. The design makes lets you navigate “between past, present and future listening, ” Pandora says, making it easier to create and organize stations. Interestingly, Pandora cribbed from Spotify and is offering tour dates on both the Now Playing and artist profile pages. Finally, you’ll be able to replay and skip tracks, provided you’re willing to watch a video commercial, while subscribers to the $5 Pandora Plus option will be able to do it ad-free. There are no options to stream songs on demand, but that will likely change soon. Pandora will reportedly launch a $10 on-demand service like Spotify or Apple Music based on the technology it purchased from bankrupt Rdio. When it arrives, Pandora plans to expand to new countries and has ambitions to triple its subscriber base to 11 million by 2020. Despite having 78 million monthly listeners and 3.9 million subscribers, the company lost $170 million last year. Given all that, it no doubt wants a strong launch for its on-demand site, starting with the new logo and website refresh.

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Pandora’s new website points to an on-demand future

Pandora relaunches its mid-level $5 monthly subscription tier [Updated]

After nabbing the remnants of Rdio out of bankruptcy last year, rumors have swirled for months about Pandora Radio’s upcoming streaming subscription services. Last month, it seemed that all standing in the way was getting the appropriate licensing — which they got on Tuesday from over 30 major and independent labels . Today, they’re relaunching their mid-level $5-per-month subscription radio service as Pandora Plus with a few new features. Unfortunately, this won’t be their much-anticipated $10 monthly on-demand music streaming service, which will supposedly come later this year. Instead, Pandora Plus aims to ride a middleground, streaming automated radio playlists at a discount but offering a few new features than its previous version to make that less of a compromise. First, a predictive offline mode will automatically switch over to a user’s top station when their device loses signal, keeping the music flowing. The second lets users to replenish their limited supply of replays and skips by voluntarily watching video ads. Pandora Plus goes live today on desktop and will roll out to iOS and Android in the coming months, while it won’t expand to Australia and New Zealand until 2017. It’s still unclear when they’ll launch their full on-demand streaming option to compete with Spotify and the other music services. Updated 4:25 PM ET : Turns out that it didn’t actually go live this morning, as Pandora still needed a final licensing deal with Warner Music Group. Even after securing it earlier today, only one percent of its user base would have been able to see and access Plus today anyway, according to Recode. So the new service is supposedly live for folks lucky enough to fit within Pandora’s slow roll-out plan. Source: Pandora

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Pandora relaunches its mid-level $5 monthly subscription tier [Updated]

Pandora’s new streaming service could launch as soon as September

We’ve know about Pandora’s plan to turn the remaining pieces of Rdio into its own subscription service for some time now, but thanks to The Wall Street Journal, we know that the launch could be imminent. WSJ reports that the company is close to securing the necessary licensing deals for the new paid service in both the US and abroad. The media outlet’s sources indicate that in addition to a free tier, there will also be two paid options — a detail we’ve heard the company’s CEO discuss in the past. We surmise that listening for free means that you’ll have to suffer through some ads, but that’s something Pandora will likely confirm at launch. While Pandora’s version of streaming has focused on internet radio stations based on an artist, this new service will be on-demand like Spotify, Tidal and Apple Music. The company hasn’t offered an update on the launch of the “expanded listening experience” it touted after nabbing what was left of Rdio last year. At that time, the vague “late 2016” estimate was offered. According to WSJ though, the new paid tiers could arrive as soon as next month. Pandora One currently offers ad-free listening with the ability to skip more often and other features for $5 a month or via a day pass for 99 cents. In terms of pricing, Pandora CEO Tim Westergren discussed the two paid tiers in an interview back in June. He explained that in addition to a $10 monthly plan, the company also aims to offer a cheaper option with “mid-level” features. Of course, timing to the official announcement is dependent on these pending licensing deals, but from the details of this latest report, it sounds like Pandora will have some news for us in the near future. Source: The Wall Street Journal

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Pandora’s new streaming service could launch as soon as September

Streaming is now the US music industry’s biggest money maker

It may have just been a matter of time , but it finally happened: streaming music is now the biggest cash cow for the American music industry. The RIAA’s latest year-end sales report reveals that streaming accounted for 34.3 percent of US music revenue in 2015, barely edging past the 34 percent of downloads. Physical sales, meanwhile, were down to 28.8 percent. And despite concerns about free listening hurting the bottom line , paid subscriptions were the star of the show. While ad-based streaming pulled in 30.6 percent more cash versus 2014, paid subscriptions jumped 52.3 percent — suddenly, forking over $10 a month for unlimited music wasn’t such a far-fetched idea. The label-backed organization partly credits the boost to the rise of new entrants like Apple Music and Tidal . Streaming was simply the hot space last year, and everyone stood to gain whether they were fresh or an incumbent like Spotify . Internet radio (think Pandora and SiriusXM) and music videos also played roles, but only tiny ones. No matter what, online tunes were enough to offset the drop in demand for hard copies, as the entire industry’s revenue grew a modest 0.9 percent. It’s hard to say that streaming will keep growing at the pace it has, since there are only so many people willing to either subscribe or put up with ads. Even so, the data might be enough to have labels changing how they distribute and push music. Rather than treat streaming as just one of multiple options, they may be more likely to steer you toward the on-demand services first and foremost. Via: Wall Street Journal Source: RIAA

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Streaming is now the US music industry’s biggest money maker

Pandora has to pay higher royalties starting in 2016

Pandora and similar services like iHeartRadio and SiriusXM will have to give a bigger part of their earnings to music labels starting January 1st next year. The Copyright Royalty Board has ruled that online radio stations have to pay labels 17 cents per 100 song plays by non-subscribers and 22 cents per 100 plays by subscribers. Pandora’s rate used to begin at 14 cents per 100 plays, and even then it was never profitable — in fact, it had to pay over $400 million in royalties in 2014, which was already 44 percent of its revenue. Pandora’s chief executive Brian McAndrews seems to be OK with the price increase, though. In a statement, he said : “This is a balanced rate that we can work with and grow from. This decision provides much-needed certainty for both Pandora and the music industry.” The ones who sound unhappy with the decision are the music labels, which wanted a much, much higher royalty hike. Record label representative SoundExchange was pushing for a heftier 25 cents per 100 song plays, causing Pandora investors to panic. The company’s stocks plummeted before the Royalty Board’s decision came out, and then it rose by 22 percent during after-hours trading. SoundExchange’s spokesperson told The New York Times : “It’s only fair that artists and record labels receive a market price when their music is used. We believe the rates set by the C.R.B. do not reflect a market price for music and will erode the value of music in our economy.” The group says it will review the decision and consider its options, which means it’ll likely continue to demand a higher royalty rate. Hopefully, that doesn’t translate to more expensive monthly fees for Pandora One in the future. [Image credit: Denise Truscello/Getty Images for Pandora Media] Source: The LA Times , TechCrunch , Copyright Royalty Board , The Washington Post

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Pandora has to pay higher royalties starting in 2016

Google And ASUS Launch The $85 Chromebit, A Chrome OS Desktop On An HDMI Stick

 Earlier this year, Google and ASUS announced the Chromebit — a full Chrome OS-based computer on an HDMI stick. Today, the two companies are officially launching this new way of using Chrome OS on any screen with an HDMI port. The $85 Chromebit is a 75 gram (or 2.6 ounces) stick that you can plug into any HDMI port — whether that’s a regular computer screen or that large TV… Read More

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Google And ASUS Launch The $85 Chromebit, A Chrome OS Desktop On An HDMI Stick

Pandify Creates Spotify Playlists From Your Pandora Likes

Pandora’s great at finding new music, and Spotify’s great at managing your music collection. Wouldn’t it be great if you could use them together? Pandify can help. Read more…

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Pandify Creates Spotify Playlists From Your Pandora Likes

Is a Roku 4 with 4K coming this way?

It was 2013 the last time that Roku launched a new flagship streaming box, and while we still adore the 3 , the hardware can’t avoid the ravages of time. Our friends over at Zatz Not Funny are reporting that the company is gearing up to replace it with a new high-end unit, the imaginatively-named Roku 4. As well as being the fourth in the series, the hardware expected to launch with 4K video playback as its primary selling point. The rumor began when streaming service Cinema Now accidentally launched a promotion for free HD rentals with every new Roku 4. Whoops. That’s not the only piece of evidence on the rap sheet, either. UKRokuChannels discovered a 4K Showcase offering on the platform’s channel store, which was swiftly pulled by the company. It’ll come as no surprise that the company is embracing the standard, since it revealed in January that it was working on a 4K reference design . In addition, now that Amazon has added the feature to the new Fire TV , it’s only a matter of time before Roku joined in. The firm wasn’t able to respond in time for publication, but we’ll keep a beady eye on the FCC’s website over the next few weeks — just in case. Source: CinemaNow (Cached) , Zatz Not Funny , UKRokuChannels

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Is a Roku 4 with 4K coming this way?

Pandora’s One Day Pass is 24-hours of ad-free listening for 99 cents

If you find yourself in need of 24-hour access to ad-free music streaming , Pandora now offers an option with its new One Day Pass. For 99 cents, you’ll gain access for the Pandora you know and love without all of the distracting advertisements the free tier includes. This means that for under a dollar, you can switch over to the one-day option for times ( dinner parties , etc.) when you’d rather not have tunes interrupted by the occasional marketing pitch. Pandora’s One Day Pass will be available for listeners in the US Thursday, September 10th through the streaming service’s Android and iOS apps . Filed under: Software , Mobile Comments Source: Pandora Tags: audio, internet, internetradio, mobilepostcross, music, musicstreaming, onedaypass, pandora, software

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Pandora’s One Day Pass is 24-hours of ad-free listening for 99 cents