<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Gigaom]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[http://gigaom.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[Janko Roettgers]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://gigaom.com/author/jroettgers/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Pandora to release day pass for ad-free listening]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p>Pandora is looking to add a paid day pass to its service later this year, company executives revealed during Pandora&#8217;s investor day Thursday. The day pass will give users a way to listen without advertising interruptions, and they won&#8217;t have to subscribe to the company&#8217;s Pandora One subscription plan.</p>
<p>[company]Pandora[/company] Chief Product Officer Chris Phillips told investors Thursday that this could make Pandora a good source of music for a summer BBQ party, where users don&#8217;t want to annoy their guests with ad breaks. He showed off a slide that featured a sign-up page for a 24-hour plan for $0.99, but added that the company will be testing the price as well as the question whether the day pass should be for one or three days.</p>
<p><a href="https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/pandora-one-day-pass.jpg?quality=80&amp;strip=all"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-919573" src="https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/pandora-one-day-pass.jpg?quality=80&amp;strip=all" alt="pandora one day pass" width="747" height="437" /></a></p>
<p>A Pandora spokesperson confirmed plans for the day pass Friday, sending me the following statement via email:</p>
<blockquote id="quote-pandora-is-committed"><p>&#8220;Pandora is committed to delivering an effortless, personalized experience and we recognize some consumers may want an ad-free experience but don’t necessarily want to commit to a subscription. This offering will allow consumers to choose and explore what is right for them or suits a particular event or experience. Pricing and exact timing are yet to be determined but we expect it to be available later this year.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Pandora currently offers an ad-free subscription tier dubbed <a href="http://www.pandora.com/one">Pandora One</a> for $4.99 a month that also offers 192 kbps playback on the web as well as more skips per day than the ad-supported version of the service.</p>
<p>However, Pandora still makes most of its money with its ad-supported service; in Q4, the company generated $220 million in revenue from advertising, but only $47.9 million from subscriptions. Moreover, ad revenue grew 36 percent year-over-year, whereas subscription revenue only grew 24 percent year-over-year.</p>
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