It’s music to the ears of Pandora fans.
Pandora, a well-known and hugely popular internet radio service, today announced it will remove the 40-hour-per-month limit on free mobile listening effective September 1, 2013.
“We’re pleased to once again maximize free listening for everyone on Pandora,” admits Tim Westergren, Pandora’s founder. “The more than 70 million listeners that tune in every month will now have more time to hear the music they love, and thousands of working artists will reach more fans.”
Pandora is now available through more than 1,000 consumer electronic devices and will be installed in approximately one-third of all new cars sold in the United States in 2013.
So why is the listening limit going away?
Pandora is able to make this change thanks to the rapid progress of its mobile advertising. According to eMarketer, Pandora is now the third largest generator of mobile ad revenue, behind only Google and Facebook.
“The limit on free mobile listening was introduced in March 2013 to manage rapidly increasing royalty costs,” the company says. “While in place, this affected fewer than four percent of total monthly active listeners. The company continues to utilize multiple additional levers to carefully and effectively manage its content cost.”
Rock on.