Pandora Claims It's Number One In 14 Top Markets

Tim Westergren, Mike Herring

• "Traditional Radio Isn't Even Close"

Pandora, the number one music listening website and app, has now become the world's most popular radio station, according to USAToday.

Pandora, which offers personalized music stations based on your tastes, is now "no. 1 in 14 of the top 15 radio markets," Pandora Chief Financial Officer Mike Herring said at an edition of #TalkingTech live @CES2015.

With Pandora's 76 million listeners monthly, traditional radio, "isn't even close," he added.

Herring and Pandora founder Tim Westegren spoke with Jefferson Graham of USAToday on the CES the convention floor. Former film composer and jazz pianist Westegren founded Pandora over 10 years ago, as a way to create a better music experience for listeners, using computerized tools to find songs attuned to our tastes.

Now, Pandora has over 250 million registered users, and is at CES meeting with next generation companies to get Pandora on tomorrow's devices.

The next frontier for the company, the pair said in our chat, is autos and wearable gadgets.

Folks are tuning in to Pandora, which ended the year as the 6th most downloaded free iPhone app of 2014, after Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. The Pandora audience listened to over 1.65 billion hours of music on Pandora in September, and averaged 20 hours per month.