Music streaming service Pandora is expanding beyond the individual listener market and into licensing its custom music streams for businesses and commercial applications.
Earlier this week, the six-year-old service announced a deal with business background music provider DMX. Specifics were not disclosed, but the commercial version of Pandora’s custom music streams will be available to businesses of any size starting at $25 a month. Pandora’s executive vice president for business and corporate development Jessica Steel commented on the extension of the service:
“The opportunity is now available for the first time to personalize and customize the music selection to really reflect the brand and atmosphere that a retail owner is driving for. That applies from coffee shops and dentists’ offices to restaurant chains and clothing retailers.”
Steel confirmed that Pandora’s commercial version will not carry ads, but the consumer version’s favored features such as the thumbs-up, thumbs-down format and artist or song-based streams will carry over. DMX CEO John Cullen told the New York Times that voting was one of the features the company wanted to carry over to the commercial version of Pandora:
“One of the things we were scared to death about was that we would not get the little thumbs-up, thumbs-down remote control unit in time,” Mr. Cullen said. “When you’re in supply chain management, these are the things you worry about.”