Station Repetition

[GGirl]

Altho I have faithfully followed the instructions to add variety/new artists to my station, I never hear them. I seem to hear the same 20 or so songs over and over. How do I fix this? As best I can tell this isn't a genre station and the "add variety" button isn't greyed out.

[AdamPandora]

@cahan009 I moved your post over to this existing thread: Station Repetition

Check out the accepted solution to this thread for instructions on how you can improve your station if it is getting too repetitive.

Hope this helps!

[cahan009]

the "accepted" solution does not address the fact that the same songs are played over and over.  Pandora wants to force the user to first hear the repeat song then interact with the website or app in come way to stop playing that song.  Not a real solution to what seems like a simple unwilliness to play more songs from all the seed artists and similar artists.

From what I reed on this post it seems like Spotify has things figured out.  I guess I will have to go check them out.  Thanks.

[Jessica1]

My station repeated about 5 different songs after only an hour of playing. They weren't thumbed and the lack of variety is annoying. There are thousands of songs to choose from, playing the same 12 over the course of an hour is ridiculous 

[AdamPandora]

@Jessica1 I moved your post over to this existing thread: Station Repetition

Check out the accepted solution to this thread for instructions on how you can improve your station if it is getting too repetitive.

Hope this helps!

[Claire949]

Lately it seems that each station only appears to save the most recent 100 songs and uses these WAY most heavily (rather than the seeds) to determine new offerings. I think I used to be able to see every song I ever thumbed up under a station, which doesn’t happen anymore. It was great to see the entire history and edit it. And the frustration I have is that those old thumbs upped songs never seem to come back around so it seems they have been deleted / lost.  I spent a lot of time creating each station. Also there seems to be a bleed-over effect, where once I have selected a song / artist on one station it will pop up on other random stations, more so than ever before. So interestingly, if you have a library of 100 stations created and only the most recent 100 songs able to be  curated on each one — then Pandora would cap you out at 10,000 songs. I really enjoyed my old selections on my favorite stations - now the stations sound stale and very repetitive !!  Thanks for reading, CY

[AdamPandora]

@Claire949 I moved your post over to this existing thread: Station Repetition

Check out the accepted solution to this thread for instructions on how you can improve your station if it is getting too repetitive.

Hope this helps!

[kendenny]

I switched my Pandora to my  Beatles station. The first song it played was "Itchycoo Park" by The Small Faces. No more than two hours later. 

Hit submit before I finished. No more than two hours later it played the same song again.

[kendenny]

Hit submit before I finished. No more than two hours later it played the same song again.

[AdamPandora]

@kendenny I moved your post over to this existing thread: Station Repetition

Check out the accepted solution to this thread for instructions on how you can improve your station if it is getting too repetitive.

Hope this helps!

[mgworek]

The accepted solution is not a solution for the fact that your algorithm just keeps getting worse. I played a station today with like 7 very different artists. The first band that played, was also the 2nd. It was also the 5th. I used to be able to hear such a wide range of music on the channel for 10 years. Even a year ago it worked. Now, I just keep hearing the same thing but I shouldn't be surprised. Your guys excuse 2 or 3 years ago for breaking being able to listen to just christmas songs by creating a station based on White Christmas also sucked after the station played just fine for many of us for over 10 years. I've been a loyal listener for soooo many years but the fact that I have to jump through hoops now for it to work, not worth it. Sorry for the rant but it has been a long time coming.

[SteveInMotion]

My thoughts EXACTLY. What the heck happened to Pandora? It was a platform that helped me discover new music and now has become a bizarre K-Tel album of my thumbs-ups.

[SteveInMotion]

Why should we undo a thumbs-up when we liked the song, and probably still do? In past years the thumbs-ups led to discovery of new music, but now you're just repeating my thumbs-ups over and over.

[Pito1]

I have an android phone.  At times it seems that my Pandora account is completely censored bc the going on songs under the dua lipa station seem to play over and over again.  As excellent as the song selection is I would like to hear more up to the minute mixes etc. Do you guys ever encounter that?

[dpscott44]

Seems like my Maluma Radio cycles the same songs.  Is this my imagination?  Any suggestions on getting new stuff in reggaeton?

[AdamPandora]

@dpscott44 I moved your post over to this existing thread: Station Repetition

Check out the accepted solution to this thread for instructions on how you can improve your station if it is getting too repetitive.

Hope this helps!

[daehreppans]

Adam,

We have all read that accepted solution.  As everyone has commented, it does not solve the issue in a manner that is consistent with why we all love Pandora in the first place.  We have spent years tuning our custom stations with the Thumbs and it has been awesome.  Hundreds of Thumbs ups and downs over many, many years has resulted in a great listening experience.  I get comments at parties about what great music I have playing.  

However, now something seriously has changed about your algorithm.  As others experienced, I get the same 20 to 30 songs repeated each day while I have hundreds of other Thumbs Up that have not been played in months.  

Can you specifically comment on what has changed with the Algorithm?  You are risking the reason that differentiates Pandora from all the others and why I have stuck with only Pandora to date!

[Valis678]

All of my stations typically refuse to ever update with newer music. For example if i play “emarosa radio” it will not play any music from the last 3 albums even after skipping through 40 songs. If i login to a pc and play “emarosa radio” there is a mode that lets me select “new releases” but this is not a fix. Clearly we all want to play our favorite radio stations and hear a blend of the artists music and not just the music that artist had the first time we listened to that radio station 6 years ago. One more example, two years ago i had pandora play “doja cat radio” , if i ask pandora to play that station right now it will not play any of the music from the new album.

[AdamPandora]

@Valis678 Thank you for your feedback around your stations not playing newly released music.

I understand that it's frustrating not to hear newer tracks on your stations, but there's no way to control when or how often particular songs will play. Because of our licenses, we have to limit the predictability of a certain song or artist from playing on those services.

That said, I do see you are currently upgraded to Pandora Premium.

With this level of subscription, you do have the ability to stream content on-demand (such as newer releases that are put on Pandora by specific artists), as well as create new playlists where you can pick and choose what songs you actually want to hear.

I recommend taking advantage of those features since you are upgraded to Pandora Premium - this will likely improve your listening sessions, as you'll be able to manually select the music you want to hear at the time.

Hope this helps!

[Valis678]

I don’t think “newer” is the right word. When a radio station doesnt play any music from 3 albums aka 6 years aka half the artists music its a programming issue. The stations are getting locked in to the artists music once the radio station is created. If i for example have pandora play “halsey” radio for the first time and thumbs up/down numerous songs then when halsey releases a new album in 6 months it will not play on that radio station. Here is another example. My favorite station is post malone radio. I asked pandora to play it the first time 3 years ago. If i ask it to play right now it will play the same 50-100 songs it played 3 years ago. This has got to be fixed. Manually creating playlists everytime new music comes out is a nightmare. I want to walk in to my house and say “alexa play eminem radio on pandora” and reasonably expect pandora to play all of the artists music and related artists music from all time in a reasonable fashion.

[AdamPandora]

@Valis678 Thanks for following up.

It's true there can be a certain amount of repetition in some stations. Each listener has different tastes when it comes to hearing the familiar versus discovering new songs. Finding the right balance for each individual is something we continue to work on.

In the meantime, here are some things you can do to improve your stations:

1. Listen using Pandora Modes: When listening from a computer, mobile device, or the Sonos app, you can access Pandora Modes to customize your station experience. You can pick different modes like Crowd Faves, Discovery and Deep Cuts.
2. Put tracks on the shelf: If you get sick of a track but don't want to give it a Thumbs Down, you can put it on the shelf for a while. To do this from the web, hover your mouse over the album art and select "I'm tired of this track." Pandora Premium listeners should click the ellipsis (3 dots) next the album art to see that option.
3. Edit your station: In some cases, it might actually help to remove Thumbs Up ratings in the station to mix things up.
4. Add Variety: To add more variety to your artist or song based stations, you can select additional artist and/or song seeds. You can Add Variety when editing stations.

Running through these steps should increase the variety of the station pretty quickly.

Hope this helps!