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AFP
Internet radio leader Pandora unveiled plans to challenge streaming stalwarts such as Spotify by undercutting them on price and matching them with on-demand music. The move comes after prolonged market jitters over the future of Pandora at a time that on-demand streaming is reshaping the music industry.
Pandora said that its premium service would cost $4.99 a month — half its earlier cost and half the subscription prices for Spotify and Apple Music. The company said the new Pandora Plus will include more advanced features to be rolled out in the coming months.
Among them is an automatic switch to offline radio stations whenever a subscriber loses an internet connection — avoiding the sudden blackouts that remain an annoyance on streaming services. Pandora, which recently signed licensing agreements with two of the three major record label conglomerates, said it would launch an on-demand subscription platform later this year. The on-demand service, whose pricing was not immediately revealed, would follow the model of Spotify in letting users select any song at any time. Pandora, whose users overwhelmingly choose its free advertising-backed tier, said it would make the level more interactive.
Listeners will be able skip or repeat songs if they click on a video commercial — a feature likely to delight advertisers who are crucial to the company’s bottom line. Tim Westergren, the company’s co-founder who returned earlier this year as CEO, said Pandora wanted to give users “flexibility†in what they listen to and how much they pay.
“Whether a listener wants to take advantage of our enhanced ad-supported experience, our groundbreaking subscription radio service or our fully interactive on-demand option coming later this year, we have a solution tailored for you at a price point you can afford,†he said in a statement.
Pandora, launched in 2000, designed itself as a radio network with stations based on genre and, more recently, automatically personalized around listeners’ selections.