More changes are coming to Pandora, following the $3.5 billion acquisition by SiriusXM last year. The company today launched a new station called Pandora NOW, powered by Pandora listener data, which is available across both Pandora and SiriusXM. On Pandora, the new experience will appear as an interactive station and playlist, while SiriusXM subscribers will be able to access Pandora NOW on Channel 3.
This is the first time a music experience – channel, station, playlist or otherwise – has launched on both platforms.
The Pandora NOW music station will allow all users to interact with the song selections by skipping tracks they don’t like, or hitting the thumbs up or down buttons to give feedback which influences what gets played. Pandora NOW will also be available as a continually-updated playlist for Pandora’s Premium subscribers.
The music the station covers will span genres to pull in both the most listened-to and the fastest trending new tracks across Pop, Hip Hop, R&B, Dance and Latin.
At launch, Cardi B, Post Malone and Khalid were among the most listened-to artists, says Pandora, to give you an idea of the station’s content. As part of the launch, Khalid’s new album “Free Spirit,” set for a release on Friday, will stream on Pandora NOW; the artist will also be at SiriusXM’s Rockefeller Center studios to participate in a launch event.
On Sirius XM, the channel works like any other – streaming across SiriusXM platforms, including its connected devices, radios, mobile apps, media players, smart speakers and more.
“Pandora NOW will be an amazing new experience for both SiriusXM and Pandora listeners,” said Scott Greenstein, President and Chief Content Officer, SiriusXM, in a statement about the launch. “We’re excited to combine, for the first time, the wealth of Pandora listener data with the proven curation expertise of our SiriusXM team to give our combined 100 million listeners a truly unique and unprecedented listening experience. Not only will Pandora NOW give listeners exclusive, up-to-the-moment access to the music people are streaming on Pandora the most, but it will let music fans influence which songs are played,” he added.
Since the merger of the two streaming music companies, SiriusXM has been quick to leverage Pandora’s capabilities and platform. Immediately, it restructured Pandora’s organization which included the exit of CEO Roger Lynch. And in January, the company announced that Pandora-powered channels would arrive on SiriusXM later this year.
More recently, the company said that SiriusXM would lend its programming expertise to Pandora, with the creation of an original content team focused on creating content in music, sports, and talk content ranging across comedy, politics, and entertainment for Pandora listeners.
Pandora NOW is available as of today across all platforms.
