With so many free streaming choices available to music fans in the U.S., some services are struggling to find an audience. On a given day, the average online music fan can hop from their personal library on Google Play Music, to Pandora radio-like tunes, to the on-demand listening of Spotify and Xbox Music—all without paying a dime.
That plethora of options is why subscription service Rdio is expected to launch a free, ad-supported tier before the end of 2013, thanks to a new partnership with Cumulus Media, the second-largest radio station operator in the U.S.
"The biggest challenge we face is really awareness," Rdio head Drew Larner told the New York Times, as Larner feels few mainstream users are really aware of streaming music services.
Unlike competitors such as Spotify and Xbox Music, Rdio currently doesn't offer a free, ad-supported version of its service. Rdio does offer new users a limited trial for up to six months, but the service's trial doesn't have ads and is not a complete service the way Spotify's free tier is. So instead of a mix of ad and subscriber revenue, Rdio relies exclusively on paying customers who shell out anywhere from $5 to $18 per month to listen to ad-free music.
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