Pandora announces Premium Family Plan

In a catch up to Spotify and Apple Music, Pandora has introduced a Premium Family Plan for $14.99 a month.

It is offered to up to six user accounts, no-ads listening sessions, offline playback, and customizable playlists.

Similar to TIDAL’s hi-fi option, family plan subscribers also get a crisper audio stream.

They also have access to Our Soundtrack, which the streaming service’s website describes as a “regularly-updated playlist created just for your family that combines each person’s unique musical tastes.”

The family plan is Pandora’s strategy to translate its 80 million monthly free users to join its 6 million subscribers (as of January 2018).

In comparison, Spotify reached the 75 million subs mark in early May, and Apple Music was at 40 million in April.

The family plan has had some analysts puzzled.

That is because the service is returning to mass subscriptions, which it was moving away from.

In its Q1 2018 financials, Pandora showed a growth in ad revenue and smaller losses, with a 19% uptick in subscriber numbers.

That is because its strategy is to utilise data-based marketing, which gives Pandora a greater take on what its listeners want.

This keeps them on the service for longer, which in turn translates into ad money.

However, Pandora’s dilemma is that the greater the subscriber numbers, the more it pays for content licensing fees, which have risen 57% year over year.

It now has to ensure that this latest move to increase subscriber numbers is successful enough as to keep the losses down.