Next Big Sound (as of November 1, 2021) Adswizz (as of May 29, 2018) Pandora is a subscription-based music streaming service owned by the broadcasting corporation Sirius XM that is based in Oakland, California in the United States.

The company was originally pitched as an e-commerce service that would use Glaser's associated algorithm as a recommendation engine, but this idea was scrapped after the Dot-com bubble hit its peak in March 2000.

In 2004, based on the success of the Best Buy pilot, Walden Venture Capital led an $8 million round of funding, and hired Joe Kennedy—formerly of automaker Saturn[13]—as its new CEO.

After agreements with Best Buy and Borders lapsed, the company began to shift its attention to the consumer market, resulting in the development of Pandora as an internet radio service using the Music Genome Project as a personalization system.

[17] On March 7, 2013, Pandora chairman and chief executive officer Joseph J. Kennedy announced that he would leave the company after nine years.

[25][26] In September 2017, Roger Lynch became CEO and stated that he wanted to expand the service's focus on podcasts, with similar discovery features to those for music as well as new monetization options.

The feature allows artists to build music playlists combined with voice tracks, where they can add a narrative and deeper insights.

[29] In October 2019, Pandora's parent company, Sirius XM, signed a multiyear deal with Marvel to launch a series of superhero-based podcasts in 2020.

[30] On June 11, 2013, Pandora announced it would purchase FM radio station KXMZ in Rapid City, South Dakota.

[34] In November 2015, streaming music service Rdio, founded by Skype co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, declared bankruptcy and sold its assets to Pandora for $75 million.

[36] In March 2018, Pandora announced it would acquire digital audio ad technology firm AdsWizz for $145 million.

[44] In March 2017, a third tier known as "Pandora Premium" was launched, which allows users to listen to and create playlists of individual songs on-demand (making it more in line with competing services such as Apple Music and Spotify).

Pandora also emphasized a use of machine learning and manual curation, including filtering out low-quality content such as "knock-off covers" and karaoke tracks.

The updated streaming service also allowed users to skip an unidentified number of additional songs per hour if they opted to watch an ad.

As such, Pandora's strategy in order to allow for widespread distribution was to offer a service unbundled from devices and transport.

[citation needed] Second, Pandora pays licensing fees to agencies such as BMI, ASCAP, or SESAC in order to compensate composers, songwriters and publishers.

Lastly, Pandora also pays TiVo Corporation for song and artist information; this has recently been structured as a flat monthly fee.

[61][62] The company filed with the SEC for a $100mm IPO on February 11, 2011, and officially began trading on the New York Stock Exchange with ticker symbol "P" on June 15, 2011, at a price of $16/share.

Pandora described the new rates as being "a middle ground that, while perhaps not meeting all of our aspirations, still represents a thoughtful and reasoned outcome under the circumstances."

Pandora CEO Tim Westergren cited escalating royalty costs as the reason for the mobile cap.

She cited (p. 97) "troubling coordination" between two of the biggest publishing companies (Sony and UMPG) and ASCAP that alludes to core antitrust concern in the industry.

[31][32] The move was criticized by David Israelite, CEO of the National Music Publishers Association, who declared that Pandora was now "at war with songwriters," and had lost its credibility because it was resorting to "lawsuits and gimmicks" to make its point.

ASCAP also alleged that Pandora did not provide enough information about its ownership structure, failing to prove that less than 25% of the company was owned by foreign interests.

On January 14, 2014, the FCC denied the acquisition until Pandora "demonstrate[s] adequate support for its foreign ownership compliance certification.

"[85] In 2014, Pandora signed an agreement with some music copyright owners for lower royalties in exchange for more frequent streaming of songs.

[86] In 2013, Entertainment Weekly compared a number of music services and granted Pandora a "B−", writing, "Free streaming radio, $36 a year for ad-free.

However, the idea of paying did not sit well with most U.S. consumers and the company had to consider alternative business models to offer a free service.

[92] Pandora obtains its advertisers by explaining that the company reaches a narrower audience compared to terrestrial radio.

"Pandora's pitch to advertisers is that its technology can cater to consumers with far greater precision than radio – it can pinpoint listeners by age and sex, ZIP code or even musical taste.

Then, the cross reference allows the company to identify zip codes with high populations of Hispanic and Spanish-speaking people, and finally it ran tests overlaying the two data sets to infer which listeners fit into those buckets.