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Monday, February 21, 2011

Pandora - are they going to drive away their listeners?

I had planned on Blogging about Pandora soon anyway, but the e-mail I got today sparked me to write this IMMEDIATELY!


I remember when I first discovered Pandora – I thought it was really cool – sure there are a lot of other services out there which I use or used but I just though Pandora had something special if they could just HANG ON until they could get the revenue to stay open.

What I liked is that one could type in a song or an artist and there it was for you to hear AND you could create YOUR OWN RADIO STATION based on that ARTIST or SONG! And then it got to be a lot more like Arbirton as Pandora would then use some algorithm to predict similar songs and/or artists which was not the BEST algorithm as I would get some pretty weird stuff on my station (or rather stations as I created a LOT of stations based upon my own VERY VARIED musical tastes). But you could always say “I don’t like this song” and it was gone from you play list or “LIKE the song” and it would come up more often as well as other similar songs/artists in that vein – but the math just didn’t work that well. As you got to hear a LOT of stuff you did NOT like – so I just hit the “thumb down button”.

Then they had to start to ad advertising – understandable. You’ve got to have revenue but these ads were not obtrusive – you just had to LOOK at it. Then they added advertising that you had to HEAR. That was OK too – it wasn’t too obtrusive and I surely understand that they set a time out feature as they shouldn’t have to pay for streaming songs to an empty room – but I did like to turn on ambient music to go to sleep with…so when it timed out – no problem. But then those ADS got LOUDER and more often and that’s when it got annoying.

However, I stuck with them even though Pandora was NOT my only source of streaming radio – but I did get turned on to a lot of new artists and songs that I would have NEVER heard otherwise. I can assure you that my local radio stations would NEVER play that type of music – as my tastes are very eclectic and I do NOT like the over homogenized and pasteurized mocha-chino land over-corporate McDonald Land chain store music that Terrestrial Radio tries to cram down your throat at the behest of the major labels trying to break and maintain their latest acts including their FIRST hit that was OVERPLAYED in the first place and the second single by the same artist that doesn’t even belong on the air. In short, if I’m in my car, its Satellite Radio and being such an avid music fan, I don’t even subscribe to ANTYHING but music. I could care less about the hundreds of channels of talk, sports, or anything else – I want MUSIC and I want the type of music that suits MY TASTES and with Satellite you can get some good music – and I grow tired of listening to my iPod or other devices through my car speakers…my paid for songs get BORING as well…

Well now Pandora has really taken it to a level that is just really BAD – they not only have commercials – but they are LIMITING how much music you can hear on one month – and since I work in front of my computers ALL DAY and in to the night – I listen a LOT. So I get an E-mail today saying I’m approaching my FREE LISTENING LIMIT!! WHAT?? According to Pandora most people do not listen more than 40 hours per month – and “the number of ADS a listener hears decline sharply after 40 hours” HUH? That makes NO SENSE whatsoever! I’m all about paying royalties, even though the royalties paid for 40,000 spins of ONE SONG on Pandora do NOT amount to much for the songwriters or publishers – in fact, Streaming Radio, is HURTING the writers and driving down royalties – but that’s a price every writer or publisher has to pay in order to even GET SPINS – as that’s better than NO SPINS at all! But give me a break – you’re going to SHUT me down unless I pay – well – I understand you need your money – but you may end up sending me to another FREE SERVICE and LOSE me as a customer all together! Sure I could pay the $39 per year, but until you get your computers to pick better music and NOT bombard me with stuff I do NOT want to hear, then we’re at an impasse. I could pay the $0.99 to keep listening with ADS included or just pay out the $39 – but again, once they shut me off – I’ll go searching for another place for music before I break out my credit card! Get it RIGHT and I’ll gladly pay –I’m already helping spread the word as I tweet and post to FB what I’m listening to – thus getting you MORE LISTENERS –  but IF I’m going to PAY – you’d better start getting your math right as well as be paying MORE to the writers and publishers and quit driving down the value of music!

SM @ MSO