Last week it was reported that Arbitron filed a lawsuit against WKYC-TV/Cleveland, claiming that the station has stated that data involving Pandora audience listening estimates came from Arbitron, when it actually did not. Now Pandora is phasing out the ad reseller program that was involved in this case, in favor of using its own, expanding local sales team.

NetNewsCheck reports that Pandora SVP of Sales Steve Kritzman says the reseller program is no longer part of the company's long-term strategy. Pandora had been testing the program with a number of TV stations and newspapers since last year. Instead, Kritzman says Pandora will continue to add to its local sales reps, having recently added more staffers in Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas, Houston, Minneapolis, Miami, Washington, D.C., and Boston, among other markets.

Kritzman also told NetNewsCheck that Pandora has added former sales people from Clear Channel, CBS Radio and Yelp over the past year, adding that "We really tried to hire the best and brightest from the local radio market. The product is so transferable."

Pandora has also released its own audience listening metrics for January, reporting 1.39 billion total listening hours, a 47 percent increase from January 2012. Its share of total U.S. radio listening for January was 8.03 percent, up from 5.55 percent in January 2012. Pandora also had 65.6 million active listeners at the end of January 2013, up 38 percent from 47.6 million a year earlier.