Pandora Sets In Motion Transition to Pandora Plus From Pandora One Service

Pandora replaced Pandora One with Pandora Plus, raising the price of its premium music subscription service to $5 per month from $4, as expected (see 1609120050). The company is keeping its free advertising-supported service and will launch an on-demand service that will compete with Spotify and Apple Music by year-end, it repeated Thursday in an announcement. Existing Pandora One customers' subscriptions will “seamlessly transition” to the higher-priced Pandora Plus service in coming months, said the company in an announcement. For their price hike, Pandora Plus users will get additional song skips and replays per month and a solution for offline listening, which Pandora says “elegantly handles issues with lost connectivity and cellular data usage.” When users lose a signal, Pandora switches to one of users’ top stations “that Pandora knows you love,” said Chris Phillips, chief product officer. Basic service listeners will have more control over their advertising and listening experience, being able to skip more songs and replay songs by opting into a video ad, Pandora said. The new features will kick in next year for Pandora customers in Australia and New Zealand, it said.