March 15, 2010

By By Antony Bruno, Denver

The Slacker customized Internet radio service reportedly plans to add a streaming on-demand subscription service in the coming months.

Wired's Epicenter blog reports, and Billboard has confirmed, that the service will combine elements of Pandora, Rhapsody and Spotify. It is designed to upsell Internet radio users to a more premium subscription tier.

Slacker already has a free tier that limits the number of songs that users can skip and places audio ads into the stream, and a $5 monthly tier that removes the ads and allows for unlimited song skipping.

No details are yet available on how much the on-demand subscription will cost, but the Wired report says it will include more functionality to the Internet radio stream as well, such as limiting the number of artists streamed in a customized station. The exact launch date also remains a mystery.

In related news, Slacker has partnered with new, online A&R company Hello Music to get unsigned artists to its listeners. Artists can upload their music, artwork and bios and become part of Slacker?s music catalog. Interested artists can go to hellomusic.com/slacker to upload their content.

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