Pandora said it will stop releasing monthly audience...

Pandora said it will stop releasing monthly audience metrics in June due to industry measurement changes it believes gives advertisers the tools they need to make side-by-side comparisons with radio listening hours. The company historically released listening metrics to advertisers because there wasn’t enough acceptance of third-party metrics measuring Pandora listening hours, CEO Brian McAndrews said at a Raymond James Financial investor conference Thursday. “We wanted them to have the data they needed to make advertising decisions.” Triton Digital announced earlier this week that it had achieved accreditation from the Media Rating Council for local ratings, and a “milestone has been met,” McAndrews said. “Now there will be no dispute” about Triton’s measurement of Pandora hours versus local radio listening, he said. Listener hours for February were 1.51 billion, up 9 percent from February 2013, and the number of unique visitors was up 11 percent to 75.3 million, Pandora said. Comparisons between 2013 and 2014 were “unique,” because last year the company was trying to rein in listening hours to manage costs, “not a situation any business wants to be in where you're actually deterring people from using your product,” said McAndrews. Now that Pandora has turned a profit, it expects to invest more in marketing to drive its free, ad-supported model, which the company sees as a bigger revenue opportunity than its subscription base. McAndrews called the car market a “huge opportunity” for the company. In integrated car applications, where drivers use their smartphone for the content and a car’s controls to operate the thumbs-up and thumbs-down feature and station changes, the company has 4 million activations, up from 1 million a year ago, McAndrews said. The company is looking for further penetration in the connected car where the car serves as both the “brains” and control for Pandora service he said. Pandora will be part of General Motors and Volvo connected cars rolling out this year, he said.