Orbitcast has an interesting post about Pandora’s aspirations in the world of non-music content (an aspiration shared with Slacker, among others).
Indeed, this is one of radio’s primary differentiators from all-music media – online or otherwise. Now, Pandora has lots of growth yet to come in the music world before the rest of the audio marketplace queues up, but still.
Why stop at music?
The larger question will be how they should leverage their unique access to their audience and provide non-music content that goes beyond what radio is famous for.
Certainly, they can’t outbid radio for premium talent, but they can license radio’s talent and can grow their own.
It seems to me that the best bet is to do a deal with radio, not view them as the enemy. At least not completely.
We shall see.
