Pandora faces a “challenge” to make it as easy...
Pandora faces a “challenge” to make it as easy for listeners to access its service in cars as it is to access AM and FM radio there, Tim Westergren, the company’s founder, told a J.P. Morgan investor conference webcast from…
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Boston Wednesday. Half of all radio listening is done in cars, so that’s an “enormous category for us,” he said. It would be ideal if listeners just had to press one button to hear Pandora in their cars, he said. “We're still a little ways away from that.” Users must now typically use a mobile phone to access Pandora in their cars, he said. In contrast, it’s almost as easy for listeners to access Pandora as traditional radio in their offices, he said. “At some point, we will be as easy to use in the car, and I'm pretty bullish about what’s going to happen then.” It won’t be a “quick transition,” he said. The “ultimate vision is a connected car” that, just as with AM or FM radio now, would play Pandora automatically when the car was turned back on if it had been the last thing playing when shut off, he said. That’s a “multiyear process,” he said. Pandora is also eyeing an expansion of its content offerings beyond music, he said. Talk radio including news, sports and weather makes up about 15 percent of broadcast radio now, and it “makes a lot of sense” for Pandora users to be able to have “personalized sports woven into” their listening options, he said. “It’s kind of a question of when, I think, not if” Pandora will offer that additional content, he said.