Pandora Monetizes Windows Phone App With Ads

It was bound to happen wasn’t it? Where there is  way to make a buck you can count on an ad to be placed there in short order. Such is with Pandora that announced today that it will be adding ads to it’s Windows Phone App. Pay or or get sucked into the Black Hole (Gray Hole?) of ad based streaming where your you will never emerge unless you pay. Why do you say? Well they will tell you that it costs money to run the app, which it does and that they need to pay royalties to the musicians that stream there. The problem is that we hear way to often that musicians are making jack crap from the likes of these streaming companies. For example, a musician with ties to us here at Mobility Digest had 14,000 plays and received $0.11. Now you know where “Starving Artists” are located. In any case, below is the PR from Pandora, pony up and pay or deal with ads.

Dear Pandora Listener,

Starting today, Pandora will be introducing advertising on your Windows mobile device.

Why are we doing this? Simply put, ads pay the bills. Running Pandora carries significant costs, including a substantial portion of our revenue that we will pay in music royalties to songwriters and performers. Advertising allows us to cover those costs, providing healthy compensation to musicians while still being able to offer you a free music service.

Our goal is to minimize disruption as much as possible. If you want to continue listening ad-free, you can upgrade to Pandora One which is free of audio and visual ads. Click here to upgrade.

As always, we welcome your feedback. Pandora is dedicated to providing you with the best personalized radio listening experience in the world.

Thanks for listening,

The Pandora Team