The new service will be available only in the United States at launch, according to multiple sources.
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These plans will supposedly place Amazon and Pandora in direct competition with streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.
Also set to unveil a new streaming music service is Amazon, which already offers a service called Amazon Prime Music that is bundled with its -per-year Prime service.
Pandora has also sought a deal with Warner Music, but has yet to come to any agreement.
Pandora originally utilised the collective licensing system in order to license its personalised radio service in the US.
Music industry insiders have speculated that the company would like to launch the new services as soon as possible, potentially this week.
“We’re going to bring these products to market in the United States and really flush out our go-to-market strategy in the largest market in the world for music”, said Chief Financial Officer Mike Herring.
One, at $9.99 per month, will directly rival Spotify and Apple Music with an unlimited on-demand service. Currently, Pandora users can’t select which songs or albums they want to listen to on demand. ‘And that is exactly what we achieved.
By letting users select songs on demand, replay them and customize playlists, Pandora hopes to attract listeners and prevent existing customers from defecting to competing products like YouTube and Spotify. Amazon’s new service would match competitors in offering the complete catalogs of all major labels.
Speaking about the landmark agreement, founder and current CEO of Pandora, Tim Westergren, said, “This was a truly collaborative attempt to find a solution that would support artists while profitably growing our respective businesses”. Pandora had more than 78 million users as of July, a user base that the company will push hard to upgrade. Pandora, on the other hand, now doesn’t compete in the market, but has confirmed that its plans for a streaming music service are well under way and may be much closer than originally thought.
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Today, Pandora announced that they have signed a series of licensing agreements with the major record labels the Merlin Network, Sony Music and the Universal Music Group and 40 other independent distributors.
