“Audio entertainment giant Sirius Xm the home of Howard Stern, reported on Tuesday that it lost 359,000 self-pay subscribers in its satellite radio unit in the first quarter.
The decline from a year-earlier loss of 347,000 self-pay subs resulted from fewer trial starts in late 2023 and higher first-quarter churn. Paid promotional subscribers during the latest quarter fell by 86,000 customers, compared to a gain of 66,000 subscribers in the category last year.”
That information my not be too troubling for many here but the next number should be concerning if you love Pandora
“SiriusXM, led by CEO Jennifer Witz, also reported self-pay subscribers of its Pandora Plus and Pandora Premium services fell by 64,000 during the first quarter, compared to a year-earlier loss of 7,000 subscribers.”
I have posted many times that I feel Pandora is slowly dying and no one in the company seems to care and unwilling to do anything to stop it. Many of us have offered countless suggestions but they fall on death ears.
Some very simple and basic thoughts that I would think anyone could agree to,
1. Sound Quality: It’s 2024 and Pandora still offers the lowest audio quality of any of the major music streaming services and yet Pandora increased the subscription price. Why pay the same or more for lower audio quality? It’s just ridiculous that this is even an issue in 2024! Increase the audio quality or just continue to watch people cancel their subscription.
2. Bring back the weekly personalized playlist that were called, My Soundtrack, These updated weekly and provided subscribers weekly updated playlist focused on specific genres or moods.
3. Gapless playback. It’s 2024, this is a no brainer and available on all major streaming services.
4. Offer a subscription bundle for both Sirius XM and Pandora. That seems like a logical decision and another no brainer
5. A Sirius Xm/ Pandora app. Why not combine the two services you own into one app or at least make that available as n option for those who subscribe to both.?
6. Pandora app. Definitely needs an update, it’s been a long time and it seems dated, and in many ways feels as if it has been abandoned
Pandora continues to lose subscribers and I don’t see it slowing down until some major steps are taken. There are so many options today for music streaming services, you have to offer at least the same quality or better experience, simply raising subscription prices while offering a lesser quality service, is business suicide.
