Pandora went ad-free for 24 hours

Pandora celebrated its 10th anniversary by going ad-free for 24 hours – but Australia and New Zealand were not part of it. “Listener Love Day” starts at midnight EDT on Wednesday September 9.

US Pandora listeners, who liked listening to all their music without being interrupted by commercials, were also offered the chance to sign up to the ad-free Pandora One which costs US$4.99 a month.

It’s too early to know how many listeners took up on the US streaming service’s offer. But it was a clever marketing strategy. Pandora has 79.9 million monthly users in the US, Australia and New Zealand. As a result, it distributed $256 million to music rights-holders in the first half of 2015. In comparison, Spotify paid $300 million in the first three months of this year.

Pandora needs to grow its subscriber base after posting a loss of $60 million this year. During June 2015 (its last available data), only 4.9% (or 3.9 million) of its users were paid, while 95.1% were free. In the same month, only 20.7% of its H1 revenue was from subscribers, leaving 79.3% out in free-land. Over at Spotify, which has 75 million, 27% (or 20 million) subscribe, and subscriptions make up about 90% of total revenue.

Commenting on the service’s first ten days, founder Tim Westergren observed, “From the first song Pandora played in 2005 to the 50 billionth thumb we celebrated earlier this year, our mission has remained the same – to provide each of our listeners with the best music experience possible, whether an old favorite or introducing them to a new artist and style of music.”

Of the highlights, he said, “Our December 2012 launch in Australia and New Zealand was a great moment.”

Westergren said Pandora users received up to 74 billion hours of listen time, creating over 8 billion stations and 55 billion thumbs-up to its catalogue of 2 million tracks from 200,000 artists. Its original 20 staff has now grown to 1,800 in its three territories.