That it will be unlike any other on the market, of course. Westergren said there are only two real alternatives now: free radio and the subscription product. And about those other subscription products, Westergren isn’t impressed. “It’s 30 million songs in a search box and good F*&%$N luck for 10 bucks a month. And we don’t think that’s what consumers want. We think they need a little help curating.” While he did not name the companies, it’s assumed Westergren is talking about Spotify and Apple Music.
Westergren says the new multi-tiered Pandora on-demand product will be just as easy as Pandora’s core product. He did not give a date for the official product release, and although he wasn’t specific, he hinted that the deals with the record labels were not done yet.
Westergren also said Pandora brings something very unique to the table. “We have 100 million people every month on the service. They are very engaged. We are the only company that can make subscription a mass consumer product. And we have a very strong relationship with the industry. We’ve demonstrated for them the promotional power of the platform. We will be a well-aligned partner which is not something they are getting with some of their current partners.”
Peter Kafka at ReCode reports that Pandora will launch two new services. One would be a Spotify/Apple Music-style on-demand service, priced at $10-a-month, which gives listeners access to any music they want, when they want it. And, a $5-a-month service that offers less flexibility, but more options than Pandora’s free Web radio service.
