Pandora to Remove 40-Hour Free Listening Limit Ahead of iTunes Radio Launch
During today's earnings call, Pandora CFO Mike Herring said the company will again allow unlimited listening via mobile devices, eliminating its recently implemented monthly cap. First introduced in February, Pandora's 40-hour per month limit was put in place as a direct result of increased royalty rates.
While desktop Pandora listeners were able to listen to unlimited music, mobile users that exceeded 40 hours had to subscribe to the Pandora One service at $36/year or pay a small fee.
According to Herring, both increased advertising income and and tighter control over other cost saving techniques have allowed the cap to be lifted. TechCrunch has a transcript of the call:
Our investment in advertising infrastructure and implementing smart levers such as reducing song skipping and limiting mobile listening have helped us drive monetization and manage content costs, as reflected by the increase in RPM and a decrease in content costs as a percentage of revenue
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.
September will also see the debut of Apple's iTunes Radio, which is bundled into iOS 7. iTunes Radio will be ad-supported for all subscribers, though ad-free service is available for iTunes Match subscribers. iTunes Match includes iCloud syncing for music acquired outside of iTunes and is priced at $25 annually -- significantly cheaper than the $36 Pandora One.
Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy told AllThingsD that the company is not worried about the launch of iTunes Radio:
"We've now been around for eight years. We've seen competitors large and small enter the market and, in some cases, exit the market. I've never seen an analysis that identifies an effect from any competitor … we don’t see the picture changing."
Pandora has reported revenues of $162 million, up 58% year over year. Its 40-hour listening cap will be eliminated on September 1, less than two weeks before iTunes Radio and iOS 7 are expected to be unveiled at Apple's September 10 iPhone event.
Popular Stories
As reported by Bloomberg today, some of the new iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air models on display at Apple Stores today are already scratched and scuffed.
French blog Consomac also reported on this topic.
The scratches appear to be most prominent on models with darker finishes, including the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max in Deep Blue, and the iPhone Air in Space Black.
Images Credit: Consoma ...
Apple released the first beta of iOS 26.1 today, just a week after launching iOS 26. iOS 26.1 mainly adds new languages to Apple Intelligence, but there are a few other features that are worth knowing about.
New Apple Intelligence Languages
Apple Intelligence is now available in Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese.
AirPo...
Next year's rumored foldable iPhone will showcase an ultra-thin design resembling "two titanium iPhone Airs side-by-side," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Writing in the Q&A section of his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman says Apple's first foldable device will be "super thin and a design achievement," combining Apple's thinnest iPhone form factor with cutting-edge folding...
Apple is preparing to release iOS 26.0.1, according to a private account on X with a proven track record of sharing information about future iOS versions.
The update will have a build number of 23A350, or similar, the account said.
It is likely that iOS 26.0.1 will fix a camera-related bug on the new iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro models. In his iPhone Air review, CNN Underscored's Henry T. ...
Apple's latest iPhone models launched on Friday, and some early adopters of the devices are experiencing intermittent Wi-Fi issues.
Affected customers say Wi-Fi connectivity periodically cuts out on the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air, with hundreds of comments about the issue posted across the MacRumors Forums, Reddit, and the Apple Support Community over the...
With iOS 26.1, Apple Intelligence is gaining support for additional languages, including Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese.
Apple announced plans to expand the languages that can be used with Apple Intelligence last year, and now the added language support is here. Apple Intelligence is now available in the following...