Pandora Radio Gets New Investment
Internet radio has taken off in the last few years. This is because more and more people are using smart-phones and using laptops on the go. Not to mention the fact that you can listen to your favourite radio station whilst holidaying in Australia or backpacking through Europe. Then, along came Internet based radio. This meant that there was no traditional radio station (ie. On a radio) for a particular company – it solely exists on the internet.
Pandora became one of the biggest streaming high quality music and advertisements across the web. Now, they have secured a massive investment from Greylock Partners of around $35 million dollars!
Currently, Pandora plays advertisements in order to make ends meet. Now, after securing this investment there is talk of charging listeners who tune in for over 40 hours every month 99c or an annual premium of $39 for unlimited listening and elimination of all the advertisements.
“New funds will be used toward the continued growth and development of Pandora” said Pandora.
It’s a good move to. Now that people are ditching podcasts more and more in search of radio – investing now would be wise. And when media players and internet speeds improve – internet TV would be no shock appearance.
4 Comments
Will Pandora be able to properly compete with Spotify? I think it is only a matter of time before the likes of Pandora and Spotify are offering TV/movie streaming – these will no doubt come at a hefty price though as the film industry seems even more in the dark ages than the music industry
@Matt I dont think Pandora are actually in the same game as Spotify. Pandora is looking more towards suggesting artists you might like, but Spotify is just about providing the music and a clean interface. I wouldnt like to see Spotify move into other areas such as TV and movies, I would much rather spotify make their platform available on all types of machines, Xbox, Playstation, PSP, Phones, In Car, In Plane, etc. Thus, my whole music catalogue will be in the cloud and I will never have to worry about listening to crappy music I dont want to listen too ever again. Then they will have a nice platform to move into TV, Games, Movies, etc.