The artist is complaining that Pandora pays a low royalty rate, and to make this claim they compare to FM/AM radio and Sirius XM royalties. However one "play" on radio or Sirius is equivalent to at least several thousand "plays" on Pandora, as there are many people listening to the radio station (and hence the song) at the same time, while with Pandora it is generally only one or two people listening at a time. So what you really want to compare are the "per listener" royalty rates, which appear to be pretty similar. Say 5000 station listeners * 18797 radio plays = 94M "pandora equivalent plays". If you compare these adjusted play counts to the royalty amounts, radio only pays 30% higher, not 100 times higher.
One could make the argument that a Pandora listener should be worth more, as they are choosing to listen to the personalized Pandora station rather than more forcibly listening to whatever the radio DJ puts on. However, the whole debate is obviously not as clear as the OP wishes it to be.
One could make the argument that a Pandora listener should be worth more, as they are choosing to listen to the personalized Pandora station rather than more forcibly listening to whatever the radio DJ puts on.
Is that not the whole point of Pandora? If it was the same as radio then what would be your incentive to use it?
One could make the argument that a Pandora listener should be worth more, as they are choosing to listen to the personalized Pandora station rather than more forcibly listening to whatever the radio DJ puts on. However, the whole debate is obviously not as clear as the OP wishes it to be.