4-25-14
Pandora executives wanted to make it clear yesterday that, in its battle with ASCAP, a federal judge declared that Pandora is defined as radio and should be treated like it's radio. Although nobody really gets to declare Pandora is radio, clearly the consumer could care less what you call Pandora, they love it. Auto dealers look at Pandora the same way they look at radio, entertainment the consumer now expects when they slide into their vehicle and push a button on the dash. Pandora has increased its spotload from 4 ads per hour to 6 ads, so it's getting closer to sounding just like radio. Whether or not Pandora is defined as radio does have many implications.
If it is radio, why should Pandora pay anything different than radio does to ASCAP and BMI? If it is radio, why shouldn't Nielsen deliver measurement numbers, side-by-side with radio, using one, easy-to-understand metric so advertisers can make an informed decision based on the behavior of the consumer? Does anyone really believe a 24-year old ad buyer has the time, or desire, to rifle through Nielsen number, Triton stats, ComScore figures to try to figure out where to spend an advertising budget? Pandora CFO Mike Herring says, "We are radio has been our argument all along."
(4/25/2014 9:04:52 PM)
if Pandora were really "radio", then it would be saddled with debt and rebuke innovation. It wouldn't sound as good and it would be losing its best young salespeople.
(4/25/2014 3:37:16 PM)
And you must be a Pandora shill.
Well this website and their associated magazine is called "RADIO" Ink, which is a trade publication for legitimate broadcasters. So yeah, I work in radio. You know... that medium that reaches 92% of the population every week. I work in a media that's free and yet has all those commercials. Oh yeah, our stock price didn't drop 7.8% yesterday. We're profitable. Our business model doesn't have us paying 60% of our revenues to one line item on balance sheet either.
You must work in radio Jimmy. Enjoy the expense of those towers. And the rare times I listen to radio, I usually hear 6 commercials during one break, not in an hour.
(4/25/2014 1:01:22 PM)
Pandora is Radio? Really? Sounds like a red herring to me, pardon the pun. What RADIO frequency do I tune in to listen to Pandora? What are their radio call letters? Can I visit their tower sites? I wonder what sort of transmitter they have? Can I see their public file? Hmmmmmm. Are they really radio? I don't see anyone asking these rhetorical questions! When will Radio Ink, other responsible industry journalists or analysts start asking Mr. Herring these very questions?
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