When Pandora for Windows Phone was announced by Joe Belifore last year, something amazing was offered up to those that used it, advertising free listening. Now, Pandora doesn’t play that many commercials to start with, but not having to deal with the few that it did play is quite the bonus. In fact, it’s almost as good as a Pandora One subscription. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.
Today, Pandora released an Important Update email for users of their Windows Phone product. The text of the email is brief and to the point, they need to make money to play music. There are two ways they accomplish this, by selling us a Pandora One membership or advertisements. The full text is below.
Dear Pandora Listener,
Starting today, Pandora will be introducing advertising on your Windows mobile device.
Why are we doing this? Simply put, ads pay the bills. Running Pandora carries significant costs, including a substantial portion of our revenue that we will pay in music royalties to songwriters and performers. Advertising allows us to cover those costs, providing healthy compensation to musicians while still being able to offer you a free music service.
Our goal is to minimize disruption as much as possible. If you want to continue listening ad-free, you can upgrade to Pandora One which is free of audio and visual ads. Click here to upgrade.
As always, we welcome your feedback. Pandora is dedicated to providing you with the best personalized radio listening experience in the world.
Thanks for listening,
The Pandora Team
Now, I am not one that minds the commercials, but the $36 a year or $3.99 a month not only gets you commercial free listening, but gains you access to Desktop App, longer ‘time out periods”, higher streaming quality and custom skins for your player. All of these really add up to quite a value for most listeners. Needless to say, if you are a Pandora user and are frustrated with the new changes, there are other options on Windows Phone devices. I would recommend checking out Nokia Mix Radio, Slacker or Soundtracker. All of them are solid performing Apps that will keep your music flowing.
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