Pandora Hopes To Announce New $5, $10 Per Month Music Services Tomorrow [UPDATED]
[UPDATE 2] It's no secret that Pandora is about to launch a Spotify like on-demand streaming music service. Exactly what form it will take and how it will differentiate from the competition could become much clearer tomorrow.
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Pandora is pushing hard to put the final touches on the label deals needed to launch a paid on-demand streaming music service. The goal is to give CEO Tim Westergren a major announcement to share when he hits the stage for an interview at the Citi’s Global Technology Conference in New York on Wednesday afternoon.
Westergren's appearance will come within hours of Apple's big unveiling and could calm jittery investors.
"As I’m typing this, I’m told Pandora still doesn’t have all of the labels locked down," recode's Peter Kafka wrote early Wednesday afternoon. "But that kind of pre-launch brinksmanship between a music service and music labels isn’t unusual, and these things often get resolved in the hours before a deadline."
$5 Per Month Option
In addition to a new Spotify-like $10 per month offering, Pandora will launch a $5 version that offers less flexibility than the new premium tier, but adds features that go beyond its free digital radio service, like unlimited skips.
“The $5 offer will be killer for them,” an industry insider told the Post. “Pandora has 76 million users that listen for free. It will have an easier time to get them to pay $5, so you might see some people switch back to Pandora.”
