Pandora Trying Out Invasive Commercial Breaks 244
Nathan Halverson writes "The popular online radio service Pandora.com has added brief commercial interruptions to its service. Pandora says this is a trial and is targeted to a subset of listeners at this point. In one case, a brief ad for the Fox TV show 'Lie To Me' interrupted the music stream for about 15 seconds after ten songs had initially played, and the same commercial interrupted 22 songs later. 'But [Pandora's] founder promised the site will never carry as many audio ads as broadcast radio, despite the fact it pays substantially higher royalty fees to the recording industry.'"
We need a spam filter for radio (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be willing to pay money for any program that filters out adds (without making too many mistakes).
I've always wondered why this doesn't exist for TV.
And I wondered what you should play during the adds... a random mp3 from your computer perhaps?
Alternatively, you can also switch to another station :D
better than the alternative (Score:5, Insightful)
However, If its the same advert over and over, that will get tedious, ive played a few free versions of games that have been ad sponsored, and to have the same advert over and over is just annoying.
Re:We need a spam filter for radio (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd be willing to pay money for any program that filters out adds (without making too many mistakes). I've always wondered why this doesn't exist for TV.
Isn't that what TiVo is for?
They will be replaced... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Internet shaped them, the Internet can break them. Look at what happened to Napster.
Re:Whatever, it's a great service (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmm... of course the station needs to get money from somewhere. I always thought that record companies pay stations to play their songs. Radio is the best add for a song (and music is a product that is advertised on radio). Why advertise anything else when radio is almost 100% advertisement? :D
I immediately admit that I am not aware of the business model of radio in 2009 (both internet or the good ol' fashioned one with photons hitting your antenna).
In the ideal case, the record company should be omitted. Bands who want to be known give their songs to a station which broadcasts it. Band becomes famous, and people pay for the concert. But then again, I also believe in Utopia :D
Once upon a time, children.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me tell you a fictional bedtime story, kids. Once upon a time there were these cable TV services that were popular because they had no commercials! Then, like an evil virus, commercials started slowly creeping in, so slowly people didn't notice the prick of the blade at first....
Headline over the top (Score:5, Insightful)
These commercial breaks are not 'invasive'. Somebody groping you on the street on your way to work is invasive. You can still choose not to listen to web radio.
Re:Hulu does this and everybody doesn't mind that. (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is the internet we're talking about, but Hulu went live ~1.5 years ago and has only been accessible to the general public for less than a year (March 12, 2008). They haven't been doing anything "for ages".
Re:*Sigh* I hate advertising (Score:4, Insightful)
The fundamental problem with all of this is that Pandora is advertising. The Music Labels get a service which is not super-trivial for you to download music from (by no means impossible) so that you can sample their music - since Pandora won't just let you listen to it how you want when you want, you may be compelled to buy it. Now they want to add commercials for shit I'm not listening to as well? If companies want to advertise to me on Pandora they can pay to have their songs ranked up, so that I hear them more. Instead, I have to say goodbye to Pandora at a time when I'm considering actually having enough bandwidth to use it. But since there are many non-commercial internet radio options, I guess I'll use one of those instead. Station ID bumpers are annoying enough when I'm in a groove, commercials are simply unacceptable to me. (I'm one of those annoying "I don't watch TV" fucks, but even when I did, I muted all commercials.)
Re:We need a spam filter for radio (Score:2, Insightful)
Yup, and for which you pay a hefty fee every year for, otherwise the detector vans come round and scan your ass (do they still have those, haven't been in Blighty for nigh on 8 years ?).
It's a similar situation with the cable TV here. While they don't run "traditional" commercials as such, they still manage to interrupt the show every 15 minutes with pointless trailers for other shows which will be airing during the week.
SO I don't think you EVER get a full 60 minutes of programming in each hour ... which is perhaps just as well, otherwise when would you run to the toilet, or make a cuppa ?
Spotify does this too. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whatever, it's a great service (Score:5, Insightful)
>Evidently, kids (who are the primary consumers of music) tend to tune out things they know are ads.
Actually, I think pretty much all of us that have grown up with pervasive advertising have an internal trip switch these days. It's a sad fact, but the way to keep sane in the modern (urban) environment is to selectively ignore most of the world around you.
Advertisers look for ever more invasive ways to get our attention, and then wonder why advertising has less and less effect. it's because we hate you and have learned to ignore you to the extent we don't even realise you're there half the time.
Re:*Sigh* I hate advertising (Score:3, Insightful)
Google indicates my post count is about 1,700 comments although it's probably be higher. I think signed up before subscriptions (~1999) but am not entirely sure. Alway's been using no scipt and adblock since they've been available, not specifically for this site. I'm just not up-to-date on the site's features/developments actually, so I don't know what the subscription is supposed to buy me, sorry. Looking at the subscriptions page, it has a page count rather than a time length....
Conversely, I do buy flash games or donate to certain flash projects and support a few websites.
It's not that I harbor an illusion that people are altruistic and projects will get as much funding as with advertising (PBS's constant pleading is testament to this and little better than intrusive adverts), but there is a correct way and an incorrect way to do things. Modern mainstream advertising stopped riding the coattails of the content that brings the audience and just actively subverts it - Television's new intrusive techniques was an example although I'm not entirely sure if that is also some type of way to prevent people from recording a perfect example of a movie they want rather than getting it on DVD. Another example would be those magazines that were once useful but then became so overrun by ads they easily outnumbered the content - and a magazine is bought and paid for. It's also brings to mind the law of declining returns - all those ads are fighting among themselves to be noticed - which is probably why Geico does the shtick it does.
As for Internet advertising - if the website stuck to a simple advert jpeg/gif or even flash file coming from its own servers and inserted them as static content to the page, along with a link to the sponsor - it would be less of a problem and hard to block anyway coming in.
Re:They will be replaced... (Score:5, Insightful)
What, so internet only media companies shouldn't be allowed to make a profit? Seriously?
You need to revise your ideas I think. If all you want is good quality free services that don't advertise, you're going to have to do them yourself, because no-one else will.
Companies that don't make a profit become one of two things, dead companies, or slowly degrading services that then get bought by larger companies.
If the latter its rare that the original appeal survives the process.
Twitter is a good example. They have no advertising, make no profits from their customers, and have millions of users. How long do you think Twitters going to last in its current form? I'd give it less than a year.
Re:Whatever, it's a great service (Score:3, Insightful)
Advertisers look for ever more invasive ways to get our attention, and then wonder why advertising has less and less effect. it's because we hate you and have learned to ignore you to the extent we don't even realise you're there half the time.
You only believe that because they told you to. Advertisers fill your head with answers to questions you never asked, then when you are called on to make a decision and you're too lazy to do research or too tired to really think about what you want, you use the answers they gave you as your own.
Sorry Pandora, it's been fun (Score:3, Insightful)
I have been using Pandora for years and have found a few new artists by using it, and I know they have struggled to make a profit, but this is the end for me. Besides the ads they have also shortened the time you can just listen tremendously now stopping the music and popping up the "Are you still listening?" dialog every 5 minutes.
Pandora is a company/project that could be profitable in so many creative ways but the asshats behind it seem to only know intrusive ads in one way or another. It is a classic case of tunnel vision and a complete lack of creativity and effort.
I plan on emailing them my thoughts before just disappearing, and I'd urge anyone who uses it to do the same.
So? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We need a spam filter for radio (Score:4, Insightful)
Rather than looking for a third party to pay for the service of filtering Pandora ads for you, why not just subscribe to Pandora? It's $36 a year. That's $3 a month. You can afford it.
Sadly, the tone of many of the posts so far is that Pandora is now evil. That's really quite sad. They've been providing you a free service for years, while absorbing the cost of broadcast royalties.
I've been a Pandora subscriber for a while. Not so I'd get anything out of it (but as a bonus, I'm not hearing the ads), but because I believe in what they do and because they've helped me find a lot of great music.
Re:Whatever, it's a great service (Score:3, Insightful)
Hear hear!
I, for one, am throughly sick of the notion that all content on the Internet must be free as a matter of principle.
Things cost money, get over it. I'd rather give Pandora a few seconds of my listening time for ads than pay them a subscription. Although I'd seriously lean towards subscribing if they ever provide the option again.
Re:Sorry Pandora, it's been fun (Score:2, Insightful)
On second thought, everyone should donate; that's the only way to get around the ads. After all, they exist so the company can stay afloat, while handing out free music to anyone who cares and is willing to be inconvenienced for five seconds of every half hour. By leaving them, you force them to find new ways to generate revenue, which results in more ad time, etc.
I plan on donating to them for listening, and I'd urge anyone who uses it to do the same.