A bit sad for you lot down south…. .I really like Pandora and have been a paid premium member for 6+ years.
Not sure any of you regular readers are listeners (other than Matt B, but I am not sure he would be considered a regular reader of this fine blog – but he has other redeeming qualities, so am giving him a hall pass) to Pandora, so it’s more just a heads up than an oh-no-I-have-to-change-how-I-listen-to-music kind of thing.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/27/pandora-shutting-down-new-zealand-australia/
There’s bad news for Pandora users down-under. While the streaming service got a nice infusion of cash from SiriusXM a few weeks ago. However, it just announced that its co-founder and CEO Tim Westergren is stepping down and, according to Billboard, the company is ending its service in the only two non-US markets it currently operates in: Australia and New Zealand.
Bottom line is this, not enough money vs expenses for non USA markets.
Since there was only two of those, Aust and NZ, they are on the chopping block.
Mixed feelings for you.
BTW, the reason I like Pandora is for their ‘smart algorithm’ that matches music types around the seed music you build your station with.
ie, you start with some chill vocal trance and your station will build around that seed and so you will hear new music based around that type of music. End result. I can listen to the same station for months of weekends and never get tired of the music.
The other streaming services just can’t seem to get that right.