Press release

New Pandora Mobile Experience Adds Dynamic Personalization and Discovery Features to Unlock a New World of Music, Podcasts and Unique Content

0
Sponsored by Businesswire

Pandora, the most popular music streaming mobile app in the U.S., today announced the launch of its New Pandora Mobile Experience, adding dynamic personalization and discovery features that unlock a new world of music, podcasts and unique content for users across all tiers of service.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191001005461/en/

The "For You" personal discovery feed featured on Pandora's redesigned new mobile app. (Graphic: Business Wire)

The “For You” personal discovery feed featured on Pandora’s redesigned new mobile app. (Graphic: Business Wire)

Pandora’s new mobile experience introduces a range of innovative features designed to enhance personal discovery and give listeners full exposure to Pandora’s vast library of on-demand music and podcasts, personalized content via Pandora’s curation team and its proprietary Music and Podcast Genome technology, and wide selection of unique programming and features no matter which tier of service they use: free ad-supported, Pandora Plus, or Pandora Premium.

The New Pandora Mobile Experience introduces new features like “For You,” a personalized, dynamically-updating discovery feed that serves up fresh, custom-curated music and podcast recommendations for each user throughout the day, the “Pandora Modes” Station customization feature for mobile, a simplified new navigation interface for greater ease of use, and much more.

“The new Pandora mobile app connects listeners across all tiers of service to our massive selection of on-demand music and podcasts, personalized content, and unique audio entertainment like never before,” said Chris Phillips, Chief Product Officer & Head of Technology, SiriusXM/Pandora. “Now, all Pandora listeners can enjoy endless and effortless personal discovery across Artists, Stations, Playlists, Albums, Songs, Podcasts, and more.”

The new features start rolling out to limited iOS and Android users today and will be available to all Pandora mobile users over the coming weeks.

New features launching today include:

“For You” Personalized Discovery Feed – An all-new destination within the Pandora mobile app featuring a personalized, dynamically-updating discovery feed that serves up fresh, custom-curated music and podcast recommendations for each user throughout the day based on their unique listening histories, day of the week, or even time of day.

“For You” gives deeply-personalized listener recommendations like a romantic music station programmed with love songs that Pandora knows will make you swoon, news podcasts with the latest in breaking stories, politics, or entertainment for the drive to work, or highlighting new releases by favorite artists the moment they’re available.

The custom-curated mix also includes unique Pandora content like “Pandora Stories,” podcasts from top SiriusXM talk shows, an all-new music station celebrating 80 years of Marvel Comics, and other Pandora exclusives that are continually refreshed in each user’s personalized feed.

“For You” gives users across all tiers of service even greater access to Pandora’s huge catalog of on-demand and Premium content. Listeners on Pandora’s free ad-supported and Pandora Plus tiers can effortlessly enjoy the full breadth of Pandora content recommended by “For You” via the “Premium Access” feature, which unlocks a free Pandora Premium listening session for users after viewing a short video ad.

“For You” creates “modules” of personalized recommendations for each user based on categories like Moods, Decades, and Artists on the Rise. Over 35 different “For You” modules will roll out in the coming months, with many more to come.

Modules appear dynamically in each listener’s feed based on their unique interests, the things they engage with on Pandora the most, and their likes and dislikes based on what they’ve “thumbed-up” or “thumbed-down.” Pandora’s groundbreaking Music Genome Project personalization technology now has over 100 billion “thumbs” of listener data, allowing Pandora to understand its users as nothing else can.

“Pandora Modes” Station Customization for MobilePandora Modes, an innovative new feature that lets users across all tiers of service customize the listening experience on their favorite Pandora Stations, now comes to Pandora’s new mobile app after debuting as a popular web feature.

With Pandora Modes, users can have more control over the kinds of songs that are played on their Pandora Stations with selectable “modes” like “Crowd Faves” (hear songs within your Station that are most liked by other listeners), “Artist Only” (hear songs only by the Station artist), and “Discovery” (hear more songs by artists who don’t usually play on this Station).

Pandora Modes lets users “lean in” a bit from the “lean-back” radio-style Pandora experience they know and love by influencing what will be played next but letting Pandora pick the specific songs that they’ll like the most, creating even more opportunities for discovery.

Effortless On-Demand Listening for All UsersWith new discovery features like “For You” and a streamlined navigation interface that makes using Pandora easier than ever, it’s never been simpler for users across all tiers of service – whether ad-supported free listeners or Premium subscribers – to search and play their favorite music and podcasts on-demand from Pandora’s vast library thanks to “Premium Access.”

Easy-to-Use Bottom NavigationPandora’s mobile app has added so many great new features that the navigation bar has been moved to the bottom of the screen for greater ease of use, making it even simpler for users to access their favorite music and podcasts on-demand, enjoy personalized and content, or discover new favorites on “For You.” Now, everything that users love about Pandora is just a thumb’s reach away.

The seeds for the All-New Pandora Mobile Experience were sown by the recent launches of Podcasts on Pandora, which offers users a rich selection of top podcasts and personalized recommendations on the individual episode level, Pandora’s new AI-driven Voice Mode smart assistant, which lets users control the Pandora app and customize their audio entertainment experience hands-free in a naturally conversational way, as well as new iOS features like Dark Mode and seamless integration with Siri.

Together, these new features and enhancements have combined to create a fresh new discovery-driven experience for Pandora’s millions of mobile users across all tiers of service – connecting more listeners with more great music, podcasts, and unique Pandora content and programming than ever before.

About Pandora

Pandora, a subsidiary of SiriusXM, is the most popular music streaming app in the U.S., providing a unique personalized audio entertainment experience to millions of listeners each month with its proprietary Music Genome Project® and Podcast Genome Project® technology. Pandora, which is available via its mobile app for iOS and Android, the web, and integrations with thousands of connected products, is the industry’s leading digital audio advertising platform, connecting brands to the largest mobile audio entertainment audience in the country.

About SiriusXM

Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) is the world’s largest audio entertainment company, and the premier programmer and platform for subscription- and advertising-supported audio products. With the recent addition of Pandora, the largest streaming music provider in the U.S., SiriusXM reaches more than 100 million people with its audio products. For more about the new SiriusXM, please go to: SiriusXM.com.

This communication contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements include, but are not limited to, statements about future financial and operating results, our plans, objectives, expectations and intentions with respect to future operations, products and services; and other statements identified by words such as “will likely result,” “are expected to,” “will continue,” “is anticipated,” “estimated,” “believe,” “intend,” “plan,” “projection,” “outlook” or words of similar meaning. Such forward-looking statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of our management and are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond our control. Actual results and the timing of events may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements.

The following factors, among others, could cause actual results and the timing of events to differ materially from the anticipated results or other expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements: our substantial competition, which is likely to increase over time; our ability to attract or increase the number of subscribers, which is uncertain; our ability to profitably attract and retain more price-sensitive consumers; failure to protect the security of personal information about our customers; interference to our service from wireless operations; a decline in the effectiveness of our extensive marketing efforts; consumer protection laws and their enforcement; our failure to realize benefits of acquisitions or other strategic initiatives, including the acquisition of Pandora Media, Inc.; unfavorable outcomes of pending or future litigation; the market for music rights, which is changing and subject to uncertainties; our dependence upon the auto industry; general economic conditions; existing or future government laws and regulations could harm our business; failure of our satellites would significantly damage our business; the interruption or failure of our information technology and communications systems; rapid technological and industry changes; failure of third parties to perform; our failure to comply with FCC requirements; modifications to our business plan; our indebtedness; damage to our studios, networks or other facilities as a result of terrorism or natural catastrophes; our principal stockholder has significant influence over our affairs and over actions requiring stockholder approval and its interests may differ from interests of other holders of our common stock; impairment of our business by third-party intellectual property rights; and changes to our dividend policies which could occur at any time. Additional factors that could cause our results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018, which is filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) and available at the SEC’s Internet site