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BlogThis week we will begin communicating directly with a small number of our listeners as we introduce a 40-hour-per-month limit on free mobile listening.
Most of you reading this will never hit the limit. In fact, it will affect less than 4% of our total monthly active listeners. For perspective, the average listener spends approximately 20 hours listening to Pandora across all devices in any given month.
That said, limiting listening is a very unusual thing to do, and very contrary to our mission so we wanted to share a quick explanation. Pandora’s per-track royalty rates have increased more than 25% over the last 3 years, including 9% in 2013 alone and are scheduled to increase an additional 16% over the next two years. After a close look at our overall listening, a 40-hour-per-month mobile listening limit allows us to manage these escalating costs with minimal listener disruption.
For listeners who do hit the limit, we have a variety of options available to keep the music you love flowing. Listen for free for as many hours as desired on desktop and laptop computers; pay $0.99 for unlimited listening for the remainder of that month, or subscribe to Pandora One for unlimited listening and no advertising.
In short, this is an effort to balance the reality of increasing royalty costs with our desire to maximize access to free listening on Pandora. We will be sure to alert any of our listeners that start getting close to the 40 hour limit. As always, your feedback is welcome.
Thanks for listening,
Tim (Founder)
Also, saying if you don’t like it go somewhere else. I think that is the point of everyone’s comments. We will be taking our time and using it on another service.
As an avid music listener, I listen to A vast variety of artist and comedians.Having the option of being able to add over 100 artist to my station list would be very helpful and desirable. I hope you will consider that option for us loyal streamers in the future.Thankyou for all you do for us loyal listeners.
Bull…..I tried to delete my account but I had to “email” them to cancel my account. Anyway, I only listen when I’m driving to and from home daily. My time was up in about a week. If they do not cancel my account as I have requested, they can keep it open but I will not return. It’s enough that I had to put up with that commercial of that black guy singing about the car I would never buy…but whateva. Good bye Pandora…nice knowing u.
slacker here i come.
hope your advertisers enjoy the reduced exposure.
I would love a option to check to see how many hours I have left to listen for the month.
Why should I keep paying $36/year for unlimited songs when I can cap off after forty hours of listening and only pay $0.99/month. By my calculations that would be less than twelve dollars a year versus thirty-six.
At $36 / year you get no commercials. For me, it’s worth it.
Just popping in to let you know you have a brand new fan!
Reading one post on your site made me obsessed there and then.
Really, you are amazing!