Pandora has announced today that they have reached 60 million registered listeners, seeing strong growth thanks to availability on a plethora of devices.
When 2009 began, the streaming music recommendation service had 20 million users. By the start of 2010 they had 40 million. It took until April to reach 50 million, and just over 3 months from that point to tack on another 10 million registered listeners.
Pandora says the growth is mainly thanks to expansion on mobile devices. Apps on the iPhone and Android devices are regularly the most popular free apps available and Apple finally updated to mutli-tasking with iOS4, giving users the ability to stream the music in the background, via 3G or Wi-Fi.
Android users have always had that ability.
Furthermore, Pandora is now becoming a standard on set-top boxes from many different device manufacturers.
If the trend continues, Pandora will hit 100 million listeners during early 2011. Not to mention they are also finally profitable after being on the verge of bankruptcy last year.
Result for: listeners
According to a government-commissioned report, the UK should be moving fully to digital radio beginning in 2017.
The Digital Radio Working Group (DRWG) noted however that the government must “ease current regulatory burdens before digital radio can be widely adopted.” The report found that by 2015 under 50 percent of all UK radio listeners will be using traditional analog radios to listen to FM and AM broadcasts.
The DRWG is made up of representatives from commercial radio, manufacturers, the BBC and the government.
“In the short term we believe the government should consider options for funding to support the reduction of carriage costs,” added the report.
Result for: listeners
While speaking in Des Moines, IA on Monday, Pandora internet radio founder Tim Westergren indicated that he believes webcasters and record label representatives are close to a deal on royalties for internet radio. The comments came at a gathering of Pandora listeners, which you can read more about in a new article here at Afterdawn.
Mr. Westergren took a few minutes to sit down with me and discuss the current state of Pandora and even speculate a little about the future. We also talked about devices that make it possible to listen to Pandora when you’re not sitting in front of the computer, including mobile phones and appliances that connect to both your home network and home stereo.
For more details about our conversation you can read the entire article on our Guides and Articles page.
