Pandora Launches Music Submission Program Designed to Boost Exposure for Indie Artists

Pandora launched an open music submission process designed to make it easier for independent artists to be discovered and heard on Pandora users’ personalized radio stations. Musicians can submit tracks for consideration using a three-step process at submit.pandora.com, it said. Pandora’s curators will listen to every album, EP or single that’s submitted, and artists can check their submission status online, the company said.

Indie music accounts for nearly two-thirds of Pandora’s music catalog, with some 44 percent of total spins on Pandora coming from indie labels and self-releasing artists, the company said. Pandora’s goal is “to give every talented artist a chance to reach their audience,” regardless of genre, popularity or the stage of an artist’s career, said founder Tim Westergren. “The recording industry needs indie labels and self-releasing artists to thrive,” he said.

Meanwhile, Pandora finished the year with the same 77 percent share of the Internet radio market it had at the end of 2012, despite “some very high-profile competitive pressure” from Apple’s iTunes Radio launch last fall, said CEO Brian McAndrews on an earnings call Wednesday. Pandora had 8.6 percent of total U.S. radio listening hours in January, up from 7.7 percent in January 2013, the company said. The number of active listeners grew 12 percent to 73.4 million, while listener hours for the month grew 13 percent to 1.39 billion, it said.

Pandora is continuing its efforts to make the service available “wherever customers want to listen,” and Pandora is now available on nine of the top-selling vehicles in the U.S., McAndrews said. He also cited availability of Pandora on Windows Phone 8 and Android tablets, along with integration with Facebook Timeline and integration with Google’s Chromecast and TV.

The company continues to invest in new technologies to improve the listener experience as it looks to grow its active listener base and boost listener hours, McAndrews said. Pandora has added alarm clock, sleep timer and station recommendation features to the user experience, and it continues to focus on “having the best playlist experience on the market” by analyzing “dozens of pieces of metadata and user interaction,” he said. Pandora’s playlist technology measures variables including repetitiveness, song duration, and new music discovery in an effort to set itself apart from competitors, and more than 50 algorithms now build on Pandora’s Music Genome Project, he said.

Marketing hasn’t been a priority for Pandora because “we haven’t had to,” McAndrews said. The company will now invest in the “front end” to drive more user engagement and spend more on marketing “to make sure people are aware of that,” he said.

In-vehicle listening is still a small percentage of Pandora’s listener hours at “low single-digit percentages” out of a total 4.5 billion listening hours last quarter, said Chief Financial Officer Michael Herring. More than four million unique users have activated Pandora through vehicle integration across 25 automotive brands and eight aftermarket manufacturers, McAndrews said. Last year, Pandora expanded partnerships with GM, Chrysler, Mazda, Hyundai, Toyota, Nissan and Honda. At CES, Pandora announced in-car ad solutions incorporating Pandora into the native environment of the car. Brands including BP, Ford, State Farm and Taco Bell have agreed to advertising sponsorships, he said.

Pandora grew its headcount by 53 percent to 1,069 employees in Q4, Herring said, up from 698 employees in the year-ago quarter. Additional staffers included 101 sales people and 77 engineers, Herring said. The company reported Q4 revenue of $200 million compared with $131 million in the year-ago quarter. Shares closed 10 percent lower Thursday at $32.23.