Pandora reportedly prepping September launch of Spotify competitor

The new Pandora service would reportedly be subscription-based, at a $10 per month rate comparable to Spotify and Apple Music’s premium services. For $5 a month, Pandora listeners can pay to avoid ads.

That’s right. Over the previous months, Pandora has been quietly negotiating with a slew of record labels to build an on-demand streaming service that would pit it against the current big dogs in that field: Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music. Majority listen for free, and only about 4 million people pay for Pandora One. Now, it looks like Pandora is targeting its competition, especially Spotify, as they move forward to offer a new on-demand streaming subscription.

Closing the deal requires the company to reach an agreement with record labels to allow for both domestic and global on-demand streaming.

Now it’s only available in the US, Australia and New Zealand, but has racked up 80m users across its paid and ad-supported tiers.

The foreign expansion could jump start growth for Pandora, which has seen its listenership plateau in recent years at about 80 million active monthly users. Users can’t choose specific songs to listen to, but instead choose themed radio stations that are interspersed with advertisements. However, more recently, Pandora has been striking direct deals with publishers to get access to their repertoires without the need to rely on these co-called compulsory licenses, paving the way for direct deals with labels as well. To this end, Pandora will have to take a cue from its rivals and collaborate with popular record labels to secure some content for itself.

Stay tuned for more information regarding Pandora’s impending streaming service. According to the report, there will be basically three tiers that users can choose. On top of expanding the music library, these deals could also allow the company to expand services overseas. According to International Federation of Phonographic Industry, out of $15 billion revenue, $2 billion is accounted to subscription streaming.

Meanwhile, Pandora COO Sara Clemens believes that its on-demand streaming product could be rolled out worldwide over the next few years.

The WSJ also writes that Pandora is interested in launching in new markets.