Pandora Radio (also known as Pandora Internet Radio or just Pandora ) is a music stream and internet radio service automatic music recommendation supported by Music Genome Project. On August 1, 2017, services operated by Pandora Media, Inc., are only available in the United States. This service plays songs that have similar musical features. Users then provide positive or negative feedback (as thumbs up or thumbs down) for the song chosen by the service, and feedback is taken into account in the next selection of other songs to play. This service can be accessed either through a web browser or with its mobile app on a smartphone.
Video Pandora Radio
History
In 2000, Pandora Media Inc. started as Savage Beast Technologies, and was founded by Will Glaser, Jon Kraft and Tim Westergren. The idea is to create separate individual radio stations for each user, with music that the user likes and without music they do not like. The company quickly ran through a $ 2 million initial fund, ran out of money in 2001. Founder Tim Westergren then convinced 50 Pandora employees from the company to work for two years without pay.
Initially, the company pursued a transition strategy from technology licensing to third parties including AOL, Best Buy, Barnes & amp; Noble, and Tower Records. In 2004, the company returned to its original vision to produce a special radio station and changed its name to Pandora Media. The website starts as a paid service but is quickly converted into an advertising service to make it also available free to users.
In 2011, Pandora launched its IPO on the NYSE and listed as 'P'. On March 7, 2013, Pandora chairman and chief executive Joseph J. Kennedy announced that he would leave the company after nine years. In April 2013, Pandora announced that their radio streaming service has passed 200 million users, about 70 million of which are active every month. In December 2013, Pandora was listed as accounting for 70 percent of all Internet radio listening in the United States.
On September 1, 2013, Pandora removes the 40-hour limit per month for free mobile listening. In December 2013, iTunes was described as Pandora's "greatest existential threat".
In early 2015, Pandora removed the lyrics from the song page but returned it in July. On April 16, 2015, the track samples were officially deleted. At about the same time, new features were introduced to give users the ability to receive notifications about their favorite artists through the music player. They also redesigned the thumbs up/down feature to allow listeners to cancel their actions. In January 2015, the songs played on Pandora have received over 50 billion thumbs up from users.
In early 2017, Pandora revealed that 56 million of its 81 million active users subscribe to Today's Country station and the country's music accounts for more than 1.7 billion hours of listening on the platform in 2016.
On July 14, 2017, Pandora emailed Australian users to inform them that New Zealand and Australia access to Pandora will cease on July 31, 2017.
Acquisitions
On June 11, 2013, Pandora announced it would buy FM KXMZ radio station in Rapid City, South Dakota. On October 7, 2015, Pandora announced it had acquired an independent ticket Agent at a price of $ 450 million.
In November 2015, streaming music service Rdio, founded by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstroem, declared bankruptcy and sold his assets to Pandora for $ 75 million in cash. Pandora maintains 100 Rdio employees, including Iain Morris and Rich Masio, who join the growing licensing department to obtain direct licenses with labels and publishers.
In March 2018, Pandora announced it would acquire a digital advertising ad technologies company AdsWizz for $ 145 million.
Maps Pandora Radio
Features
Streaming
A station is set by specifying an artist or song, or a combination of multiple items of any kind in a single station. Listeners can tune in to existing genre stations, other user stations or create their own stations based on their musical interests. Each song played can be responded with favorable (unwanted) or unwanted buttons (thumbs down), which determines whether it should be played, and if the same song is classified must be played on the station. A second negative response to the same artist will prohibit the artist from the selected station unless the user positively marks the artist on another occasion or if the artist is listed under the station variation. No responses apply to music or album attributes. Unprofitable response immediately stops track playback. Clicking the thumbs down or jumping too often to the next song in a row will cause a fast jump ban. Pandora also uses short ads between every few songs.
The menu is provided with options, such as "I'm bored with this song" (allowing users to remove songs from temporary stations, considered a leap), "Why was this song selected?" (allowing users to learn more about the composition of each song), "Move the song to another station," "New station," and "Bookmarks." The "Buy" button is located at the top of each track block. From there, listeners can click links to buy songs from iTunes or Amazon.
There are settings in each member account that allow the user to censor the song with explicit lyrics. The sensor option applies exclusively to the track version of the album with the Parent Advisor label, since other songs with the censored version will have the version being played. An example is the Jet Airliner song by Steve Miller Band, which has one word censored for radio playback. With explicit lyrics, the version will play, because the album does not have a PA label.
When listening, users are offered the ability to purchase songs or albums at various online retailers. More than 450 music attributes are considered when selecting the next song. These 450 attributes are combined into large groups called focus characteristics. There are 2,000 features of focus. Examples are syncopation of rhythm, key tone, vocal harmony, and instrumental skills are displayed.
The service has two subscription plans: ad-supported free subscriptions, and fee-based subscriptions without ads. There are ads on Pandora Mobile for mobile phones and in Pandora's computer tools. As of October 2014, less than 5 percent of active listeners pay customers. At the time of Pandora's IPO in 2011, Pandora has 800,000 songs from 80,000 artists in its library and 80 million users. In November 2014, Pandora has about twice the size of its library, reaching 1.5 million songs. As of October 2016, Pandora has 77.9 million active users.
In September 2016, Pandora announced additional features and subscription options, including a mid-level subscription service known as Pandora Plus which offers free streaming support, offline playback, prediction mechanisms and more skips and replays. Service users including free advertising are also given more skips and replays instead of watching ads. Pandora also announced the launch of an on-demand service similar to competitors such as Apple Music and Spotify.
On March 13, 2017, Pandora launched Pandora Premium , a new service that allows users to listen and create playlists of individual songs on demand. Pandora's suggestion engine suggests and recommends songs and albums, and produces playlists based on the same song. Pandora also emphasizes the use of machine learning and manual curation, and that it has filtered out "karaoke tracks, artificial cover and pet sounds (but not Pet Voices ) that slows down other services" from the library.
Limitations
To comply with the terms and safeguards offered by the DMCA, Pandora only serves users in the United States, using IP addresses to block users from non-compliance countries.
Rewind is not allowed. As of May 2009, six jumps per station were allowed per hour, further limited to 72 skips every 24 hours. Giving a thumbs down response, or a "no play for a month" response counted as a leap. On May 21, 2009, the skip boundary was modified in such a way that it calculated the total jump of all stations with a total twelve-jump limit every 24 hours. If a listener gives a song with thumbs down or "no play for a month" once the limit has been exceeded, the song will continue to play; only after the song is finished, the song is subject to listener limitation. The game of a single artist is limited, because Pandora provides similar music, not a play service on demand.
Initially, users with free accounts can listen to music for 40 hours per month, and can pay $ 0.99 per month for unlimited streaming. In September 2011, Pandora erased the listening limit of 40 hours. This 40-hour free listening limit was reintroduced in March 2013 for mobile devices. However, this limit was removed once again in September of the same year.
Mobile devices
Pandora is available on iOS devices. This is ad-supported and retains the original jump limit. Pandora is also available on Android (for tablets and phones), and BlackBerry 10 handsets through the Amazon app store.
Windows Mobile clients are limited to a limited number of selected handsets; however, the installer is available from a third-party source and works fine or with only minor annoyances on most devices. In March 2013, it became available on Windows Phone 8 as a free app with ad-free streaming until 2014.
The Pandora for BlackBerry OS (7.1 and earlier) applications are limited to AT & amp; T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, Boost Mobile and US Mobile operators, but visit Pandora's website directly, other BlackBerry users have successfully downloaded and used the app.
Technical information
Pandora's media player is based on OpenLaszlo. Pandora is also accessible through many streaming media devices such as Roku radio, Reciva-based radio (from companies like Grace Digital, Sanyo, and Sangean), Frontier Silicon-connected audio systems, Sanding Devices, Sonos, and HEOS by Denon. product (s). On July 11, 2008, Pandora launched a mobile version of their software for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch through the iTunes App Store. Pandora is also available for Windows Phone, Windows 10, Android phone, BlackBerry platform, HP webOS (used on Palm Pre, Palm Pixi, Palm Pre 2, and HP Veer). Pandora is a provider for MSN Radio until MSN terminated their internet radio service on June 18, 2008. Pandora's modified version is available for Sprint. Pandora is available on Comcast's X1/X2 cable TV products. GNU/Linux based applications, called Pithos, available to access Pandora Radio, are available for most distributions through their repositories and are also available to build from sources. The SoundSpectrum based visualization app based on iOS Tunr has native support for Pandora, but requires ONE subscription.
By subscribing to the Pandora One service, Windows and Mac users can download desktop applications for Pandora using Adobe Air without using a web browser to access Pandora. All normal functions are included such as thumbs up/down, skip, pause and access to all channels in user accounts.
Business model
Pandora decided to become a consumer-oriented music discovery service, especially non-interactive radio stations. In the three months ended October 31, 2011, advertising comprised 88% of Pandora's total revenue; an 80% figure is reported for this metric by December 2013. RPM (earnings per 1,000 hours) is determined by CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions). CPM largely relies on network effects and thus increases as the scale of the website and adds the user. Thus, Pandora's strategy to allow widespread distribution is to offer unclassified services from devices and transportation. Pandora is currently working with on-chip system manufacturers to embed technology on chips they sell to consumer electronics manufacturers such as Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic.
The cost structure of Pandora varies greatly, with the cost of content acquisition representing about 50% of the total cost. There are three main costs associated with content acquisition. First, SoundExchange collects the cost of content on behalf of the label or artist on the recording itself. This is the largest content acquisition cost. Secondly, Pandora pays license fees to advertising agencies like BMI, ASCAP, or SESAC to compensate composers, songwriters and publishers. Finally, Pandora also pays Rovi for song and artist information; this was recently structured as a fixed monthly fee.
The high variable cost means that Pandora has no significant operating leverage, and in the next few years may actually have negative operating leverage due to an unfavorable shift in the product mix towards mobile. Pandora is currently estimated monetizing mobile clocks about one-ninth-level desktop clock. Because Pandora pays the same hourly licensing fee regardless of the user platform, net contributions to mobile hourly earnings are even more inclined with respect to contributions to earnings from desktop clocks. Mobile revenue will increase over time as Pandora shifts from relying on third-party ad networks to internally sell advertising inventory at premium rates.
In January 2011, Pandora met with an investment bank to consider the possibility of a $ 100 million IPO. The company submitted the SEC for a $ 100mm IPO on February 11, 2011 and officially started trading on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol "P" on June 15, 2011 for $ 16/share. This gives them an assessment of nearly $ 2.6 billion.
Pandora announced $ 80.8 million in total revenue for the first quarter of fiscal year 2012, up 58% from Q1 results the previous year. From $ 80.8 million, $ 70.6 million came from advertising, while $ 10.2 million came from subscriptions. In addition, Pandora has seen an increase in ad revenue by 62%, and 38% increase in subscription revenue from year to year. However, most Pandora users continue to use ad-supported free models.
Royalties
In 2007, a federal panel agreed with SoundExchange's request and ordered a doubling of per-song performance royalties paid to Web radio stations to players and record companies. With this scheme, internet radio will pay double the royalties paid by satellite radio.
Due to the passing of the DMCA in 1998 which raised fees and requested a license guarantee, Pandora's services were only available in Australia, New Zealand and the US, until service to Australia and New Zealand ceased on 1 August 2017 after "external factor considerations". This decision affects all Internet-based radio stations in the US (terrestrial radio is not affected).
In July 2008, Pandora was in talks with a major music label about royalty issues to allow a return to the European market. Costs remain a concern because of European royalty standards and low demand for paid music services.
In 2008, Pandora's founder stated that the company may be on the verge of collapse. The royalty fee is the largest part of Pandora's income. If an agreement between Pandora and SoundExchange has not been reached, it could mean the end of Pandora. "We lost money like that," said Tim Westergren. "When we think this problem in Washington will not be solved, we have to pull the plug because all we do is waste money."
As of September 30, 2008, a bill was passed by the House of Representatives and the US Senate to allow sites such as Pandora to continue negotiations with SoundExchange into 2009.
On July 7, 2009, Pandora announced that an agreement had been reached on the issue of royalties, which would significantly reduce the royalty rate, thus allowing Pandora to remain in business. It was also announced that free listening would be limited to 40 hours per month, but could be extended to an unlimited month for USD $ 0.99. "The revised Royalty is quite high," notes the company blog, "higher than any other radio". Extended listening fees are different from "upgrades", which also disable ads, increase the bitrate from 64 to 192 kbps, and provide a dedicated music player (as opposed to listening via browser). This service, known as "Pandora One", costs $ 36 and is billed annually. Pandora has since introduced the option to buy Pandora One subscriptions each month at a rate of $ 3.99 per month. Also, in September 2013, Pandora began working with HitBliss to create a Pandora One subscription available for HitBliss received-payment.
With updates for Pandora players in September 2011, the 40 hour limit is extended to 320 hours.
On November 22, 2011, Pandora reported its Q3 revenues. The royalty fee accounts for 50% of revenue, slightly better than expected. Her earnings, mostly from advertising, continue to rise at a respectable level. Pandora not only attracts more users, but the average number of hours per user also increases. Pandora now accounts for about 4% of total US listening hours. As Pandora grows, she hopes to gain influence on music labels and lower royalty fees.
On December 9, 2011 Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced Spotify Radio will offer unlimited number of stations and unlimited jumps. Although Pandora's use is 70% mobile, the Spotify Radio app competes with Pandora's mobile market.
Pandora CEO Tim Westergren has endorsed The Internet Radio Fairness Act or IRFA (H.R. 6480/S 3609), which will reduce corporate royalty payments to players by up to 80 percent.
On November 5, 2012, Pandora filed a lawsuit in the federal district court against ASCAP for a royalty fee. In the lawsuit, the company sought to advocate lower license fees on all songs represented by 435,000 ASCAP members. On February 27, 2013, Pandora announced the limit of 40 hours per month to listen to free mobile phones. Pandora CEO Tim Westergren cites increased royalty fees as an excuse for mobile hats.
In a public ruling earlier this year, US District Judge Denise Cote ruled that Pandora's tariff paid to ASCAP must remain the same, 1.85%. He cites (p.99) "problem coordination" between the two largest publishing companies (Sony and UMPG) and ASCAP that allude to antitrust industry concerns.
Having stated that both ASCAP and BMI show biases against international broadcasters who have terrestrial radio stations, Pandora announced on June 11, 2013 that it will seek KXMZ, a radio station in South Dakota, assuming that it will allow it to access the terms of a preferential license the same is offered to services like iHeartRadio (owned by iHeartMedia, Inc., itself the largest radio broadcaster in America). The move was criticized by David Israelite, CEO of the National Association of Music Publishers, who stated that Pandora is now "at war with songwriters," and has lost his credibility as it turned to "lawsuits and ruse" to make the point. However, a member of Public Knowledge praised the move, stating that it was "a perfect example of the twisted incentives and strange results we get from a music licensing system based on who wants a license, not just what they want to do. they use. "ASCAP also objected to the deal, petitioned to refuse with the FCC. The organization believes that the acquisition is not in the public interest because of Pandora's intention to use it as a "bargain chip" for royalty payments. ASCAP also alleges that Pandora did not provide sufficient information about its ownership structure, failing to prove that less than 25% of the company is owned by foreign interests. On January 14, 2014, the FCC refused the acquisition until Pandora "showed sufficient support for certification of foreign ownership compliance."
On September 1, 2013, Pandora removes the limit of 40 hours per month to listen to free mobile phones (originally announced on February 27, 2013). Pandora stated that he was able to make this change "thanks to the rapid advancement of his mobile advertising."
In 2014, Pandora signed an agreement with some music copyright owners for a lower royalty in exchange for streaming more frequent songs. Although not illegal, this practice increases the comparison to payola, which is illegal payments to be played on terrestrial radio.
On September 15, 2016, Pandora released "Pandora Plus", a new subscription service to compete with other streaming services; the price is set at $ 4.99 and available within a few months.
Reception
In May 2010, Pandora was named in the 2010 Hottest San Francisco Lead411 list of companies. In 2013, Entertainment Weekly compared a number of music services and gave Pandora a "B-", writing, "Free radio streaming, $ 36 per year for ad-free. every platform, no demand, and stations tend to draw from a relatively small collection of albums. "In March 2014, the annual option was abolished, and the $ 3.99 monthly plan was the only way to get Pandora One. Prices rose to $ 4.99 per month in July 2014. Annual subscriptions are brought back and now $ 54.89 per year.
Ads
Pandora initially offered a subscription-only service without advertising. However, the notion of payment does not suit most US consumers and companies should consider alternative business models to offer free services. Then, in December 2005 Pandora sold her first ad.
In 2015, Pandora starts playing more hourly ads in certain geographies and demographics. Pandora usually plays no more than 3 ads per hour for free users.
Revenue
Pandora became quite popular in just two years. From 2010 to 2012 registered users Pandora has increased from 45 million to 125 million. The company's revenues increased from $ 55 million to $ 274 million, where most of the advertising. To attract more customers, Pandora offers ad-free access for $ 36 a year. During fiscal 2011, Pandora reported $ 138 million in revenue with a net loss of $ 1.8 million, excluding the special dividend costs associated with the IPO. Overall, Pandora owns 78% of Internet radio, and has a share of 9.3% of US public radio. Finally, in 2013, the total revenue of radio advertising throughout the industry increased to $ 17.6 billion in the US.
Promote advertisers
Pandora gets its advertisers by explaining that companies are reaching a narrower audience than terrestrial radio. "Pandora's mind for advertisers is that the technology can serve consumers with much greater scrutiny than radio - it can show listeners by age and gender, zip code, or even musical tastes."
Advertising method
There are different advertising methods in Pandora. Audio ads appear within 15 to 30 seconds, and run once every 20 minutes. However, users only find ads if they are involved with the site, such as contributing a thumbs-up or thumbs down when changing a song or station.
Furthermore, there are banner ads displayed on the site wallpaper. As noted by the New York Times , banner ads are on Pandora in order "to promote engagement, the audio segment may be accompanied by clickable display ads offering coupons or product information.
Ads in Pandora work through data collection methods from users' online browsing activities. Once the data is collected, the company uses data to show the target user's ads. This advertising process is also known as behavioral advertising. Pandora offers its users the option to send out of targeted ads, with an opt-out configuration on its website. Opting out will only prevent targeted ads, which means users can continue to see generic (non-target) ads from these companies after they opt out. Finally, Pandora offers either targeted ads or generic ads for non-subscribers. However, Pandora ads do not offer local content like local news, weather, traffic, and talk.
Market segment
Pandora has created two market segments, one for Spanish listeners, and one for an English-speaking listener. By creating many market segments, Pandora's ads are tailored to the needs of its users. To create the first two market segments, the company cross-references registered users' data with the US census. Then cross-referencing allows the company to identify postal codes with high populations of Hispanic and Spanish-speaking people, and finally it runs an overlay test of two sets of data to conclude which listener gets into the bucket.
Internet radio rival
Beginning in early 2010, new entrants entered the private radio market, such as Grooveshark (launched 2007), iHeartRadio (launched 2008), Mog.com, TuneIn (founded 2002), AccuRadio, Rhapsody (launched 2001), and Spotify in Europe, all threatening to use the concept of "right" on-demand access to online music as a challenge to Pandora's personal radio.
Europe's most popular online music streaming service, Spotify, was launched in 2006 and arrived in the US in mid 2011. In 2016, Spotify has a catalog of over 30 million songs compared to Pandora's library of 1.5 to 2 million. As Miranda Ferrara and Michele LaMeau point out, Spotify allows users to upload their own songs to online libraries, while Pandora allows listeners to connect to Facebook social media sites to see what their friends are listening to, Spotify users can quickly and easily share playlists with their friends via Facebook, Twitter, email, and SMS text messages ".
The second competitor to target Pandora's personal radio appeal is iHeartRadio. Editor Miranda Ferrara and Michele LaMeau noted "iHeartRadio is the largest radio operator in the United States with 237 million listeners and 800 stations in 150 markets, iHeartRadio, like Pandora, offers listeners an opportunity to like or dislike songs to receive recommendations about other songs. also offers a special tool that enables listeners to discover new artists or more songs based on existing choices ".
Sirius XM has also been a competitor in recent years due to online accounts only and able to customize the station; Their wide availability in both new and used car markets also gives Pandora more benefits. When acquiring XM Satellite Radio in 2007, Sirius actually predicted accurately that they would compete with streaming services like Pandora in its argument with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on whether merging the only two satellite radio companies in North America would cause antitrust problem.
As admitted by Ad Age staff, "Pandora has about 76 million monthly users, and about 70% of the Internet radio market share in the US." Ad Age estimates that competition is likely to increase due to Apple's acquisition of Beats Music service, but Apple announced that it will closed service on November 30, 2015.
But even with all its competitors, Pandora's Promotion Station relies on its core Music Genome Project. Overall, the Genome Music Project with more than 450 attributes assigned to each song with a human-rated database of recorded music gives a huge advantage over competitors such as Spotify and Beats Music.
See also
- List of internet radio stations
- List of online music database
References
External links
- Official website
- Pandora is featured on Fast Company
- Inside Pandora: The Web Radio That Listens You (Digital Media O'Reilly article)
- Flux podcast interview with Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora
- Pandora's feature on WNBC-TV
- Closing the Pandora's Box: The End of Internet Radio ?, 3 May 2007 interview with Tim Westergren
- Pandora adds classical music
- Interview with Tim Westergren on the Music Genome Project and Pandora
- Dave Dederer & amp; nuTsie Challenge Pandora
- Inc. Tim Westergren magazine profile
- The New York Times article about Tim Westergren and Pandora
- Pink Floyd: Internet radio royalty Pandora hacked USA TODAY, 2013
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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