Yesterday I attended Slacker launch event in San Francisco where Jim Cady, the CEO, introduced the new Slacker Music Service with its new branding and revamped website and mobile application.
Founded in 2006 as a satellite radio company, Slacker became a free digital music radio service just like Pandora, and finally delivered a complete premium music service such as Spotify, Mog or Rhapsody in 2011. The redesigned application now offers over 13 millions songs across 200 music genre stations, news and sports via ABC and ESPN, new customization features and exclusive content from expert curators.
The service is free and for $3.99 per month, listeners can get a commercial free experience and unlimited song skips (Slacker Radio Plus). The Slacker Premium service with music on-demand and custom playlists costs $9.99 a month, a similar price to competitive services.
During his presentation on stage, Jim Cady, CEO, Slacker, stated that “Slacker is the most complete music service on earth”. In fact he said that the service is better than Pandora and Spotify, and the company even used the comparison in its advertising campaign. According to Jim Cady, Slacker offers 10 Times the music of Pandora, expert programmed stations Spotify can’t touch, and personalization that satellite services only dream of,”.
Last night, Slacker claimed that each user, whether subscribing to a free or paid account, is profitable for the company, which is not the case for some of the competitors.
The service now counts half-million paying subscribers and more than four million monthly average users.