Pandora is trying to navigate the increasingly crowded streaming market that now finds it playing catchup to other services like Spotify and Apple Music. In an attempt to try and become more artist friendly, it has officially rolled out a new feature called AMPcast that allows artists to directly communicate with their fans.
The new feature announced early in 2015 allows artists to record messages like those that Father John Misty recorded, and play them on mobile or any other device in a targeted manner for their fans. The messages can be promos about new music, tour dates or any other piece of news and played during a commercial break. They can be geo-targeted to hone in on fans in New York City to promote a gig in New York for example.
"AMPcast has the potential to change the odds for musicians," said Tim Westergren, Pandora's founder in a press release. "This powerful tool, combined with the scale and reach of Pandora, gives every talented and hard-working artist a real shot to build a career in music. Marketing and promotion for artists will never be the same."
AMPcast builds on the success of Artist Audio Messages that was launched as a part of the Artist Marketing Platform (AMP). Over 152 million messages have already been sent with varying levels of success.
"Lately I've been using AMPcast to spread the word," said Oakland-bred rapper G-Eazy, who has over half a billion spins on Pandora. "It's as easy as it can possibly be. Pandora is changing the game with this one."
Pandora finds itself at an important crossroads in 2016, looking to expand and grow its user base from a stagnant 80 million subscribers. It went on a spending binge in 2015, buying up Ticketfly for $450 million, analytics company Next Big Sound for an undisclosed amount and then Rdio for $75 million in an attempt to try an expand into the on-demand streaming market over the next couple of years.
