Pandora Limits Free Mobile Listening to 40 Hours Per Month

[MacRumors]

Pandora will begin limiting mobile listeners to 40 hours of free listening per month, the company revealed in a blog post today. The change was made in response to a rise in the royalty rates that the company must pay to record companies.

Users who wish to listen to more than 40 hours per month can subscribe to the Pandora One service and get unlimited listening, as well as no advertising -- or pay a one-time $0.99 fee to listen as long as they like for the rest of the month. Desktop users can continue to listen to unlimited music.

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.

Pandora may come under increasing pressure from competitors over the next year -- Google and Apple are both rumored to be working on subscription-based music services, and Spotify is reportedly working to bring its free product to mobile devices.

Article Link: Pandora Limits Free Mobile Listening to 40 Hours Per Month

[BigJohno]

So im paying for something and I can't listen to it unlimited... Looks like i'm not going to reup my payment.

[komodrone]

Won't affect me, because I moved over to Spotify.

[GuitarDTO]

The writing is on the wall. Too much (better) competition.

[PantherCreek]

Originally Posted by BigJohno

So im paying for something and I can't listen to it unlimited... Looks like i'm not going to reup my payment.

Originally Posted by MacRumors

Users who wish to listen to more than 40 hours per month can subscribe to the Pandora One service and get unlimited listening, as well as no advertising -- or pay a one-time $0.99 fee to listen as long as they like for the rest of the month.

If you're paying - you're getting unlimited uninterrupted music from Pandora.

[Primejimbo]

Originally Posted by komodrone

Won't affect me, because I moved over to Spotify.

me either, i don't use any of that stuff.

[OrangeSVTguy]

40+ hours via mobile is insane. Guess you better have an unlimited data plan. I will maybe listen to 3-4 hours a day at work when we are on a job with limited radio reception or interference. I wish I had unlimited data plan as I would probably listen to it every day.

I'd like to see Netflix add a music service since I already pay for that

[britboyj]

Originally Posted by BigJohno

So im paying for something and I can't listen to it unlimited... Looks like i'm not going to reup my payment.

THE ANSWER IS IN THE HEADLINE.

Christ...

[Spectrum Abuser]

Originally Posted by BigJohno

So im paying for something and I can't listen to it unlimited... Looks like i'm not going to reup my payment.

Did you not read the second paragraph?

Users who wish to listen to more than 40 hours per month can subscribe to the Pandora One service and get unlimited listening, as well as no advertising -- or pay a one-time $0.99 fee to listen as long as they like for the rest of the month. Desktop users can continue to listen to unlimited music.

Besides. Pandora has had the forty hour limit in the past. They removed it back in 2011. It was bound to come back eventually.

[alchemistmuffin]

Apple will probably have the streaming service free of charge, because it'll probably going to be part of iCloud, which is free.

[Small White Car]

Completely reasonable pricing.

[xkmxkmxlmx]

can't you just login to a different account? or is it one account per device sort of deal.

[eawmp1]

Cheaper cost vs. increased limits.
Cost usually wins with consumers.

[tylerhbrown]

Originally Posted by BigJohno

So im paying for something and I can't listen to it unlimited... Looks like i'm not going to reup my payment.

The image from this post is misleading, this DOES NOT affect Pandora One users.

[BigJohno]

Originally Posted by britboyj

THE ANSWER IS IN THE HEADLINE.

Christ...

jeez sorry didn't read it fully.

[Maddix]

Something needs to scare XM and Sirius for their horrible 50 kbps sound quality. They need to get rid of channels and up the bitrate for better sound quality.

[rorschach]

Originally Posted by alchemistmuffin

Apple will probably have the streaming service free of charge, because it'll probably going to be part of iCloud, which is free.

More likely it'll be part of iTunes Match. "Stream all the songs you already own -- and now any song in the iTunes catalog."

[GuitarDTO]

Originally Posted by Maddix

Something needs to scare XM and Sirius for their horrible 50 kbps sound quality. They need to get rid of channels and up the bitrate for better sound quality.

Agreed! I have vehemently tried to get my wife to dump Sirius XM. Terrible sound quality from their app, terrible channel selection, poor pricing and even worse customer service.

[tech4all]

Originally Posted by britboyj

THE ANSWER IS IN THE HEADLINE.

Christ...

Loose the caps!

That pisses me off when people do that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Chill dude.

Originally Posted by xkmxkmxlmx

can't you just login to a different account? or is it one account per device sort of deal.

Could be by IP address. If that doesn't change then...

[nagromme]

I never even realized the old 40 hour limit had ever been lifted! And I never hit that limit before so I won't now.

So this was non-news to me.

One thing I like about the limit, actually: I calculated how much data 40 hours would be on cellular: much less than than my data plan. So I can feel free to listen to Pandora ALL the time in the car, knowing that it will run out before my megabytes do. (But it never runs out. Still--peace of mind.)

Originally Posted by alchemistmuffin

Apple will probably have the streaming service free of charge, because it'll probably going to be part of iCloud, which is free.

iTunes Match is not free, though.

[donniedarko]

Spotify Im happily with... Pandora is pretty bad anyways but nothing close to the shvt show and waste of 25$ called Match from Appl$

[Mackan]

No problem, I listen to music about 5 min per month.

[zorinlynx]

Something I've always wondered...

Why is mobile listening treated differently than desktop listening? For instance, Spotify free lets you do more listening on a desktop than a phone.

Many YouTube videos, particularly songs, cannot be viewed on mobile devices.

I've always wondered about this; it's the same data, it's the same person seeing the same content, just on a different device. Why differentiate?

[ziggyonice]

Blame this on politics.

Regular, terrestrial radio (like what you listen to in your car) pays NOTHING for royalties to play the music you hear.

But for some asinine reason, Internet radio is required to pay substantial royalty fees — that's why Pandora is the most successful out of all of 'em, because no one else could afford it. When Pandora lobbied to Congress to try and get the same opportunities as terrestrial radio, their efforts were torn apart. Lawmakers actually suggested increasing the amount Pandora has to pay.

Absolutely ridiculous.

[MrDc2]

Originally Posted by tech4all

no you chill, okay? Thank you.

...I just tried to type in all caps and it..edited me..FAIL!