Jay-Z surprised fans in December 2019 by moving his music catalogue back to Spotify after a two-year hiatus. The privately-held company had three million paying subscriptions in 2016, when it last disclosed figures. Tidal has listeners in more than 56 countries and relationships with more than 100 labels and distributors.īut Tidal has struggled to compete against much larger streaming services such as Spotify and Apple. Owners include several other high-profile artists, including Madonna, Rihanna and Jay-Z's wife, Beyonce. Jay-Z bought Tidal from Europe-based Aspiro in 2015 in a deal valued at slightly more than $56 million, and sought to use the platform to give artists more control over their work. "New ideas are found at intersections, and we believe there's a compelling one between music and the economy." "It comes down to one simple idea: finding new ways for artists to support their work," said Dorsey. "The acquisition extends Square's purpose of economic empowerment to a new vertical: musicians," said a statement from the finance tech firm led by Jack Dorsey, who is also the chief executive of Twitter. In other words: if music fans stream more on a service in a given month, its per-stream payout will go down if music fans stream less in a given month, its per-stream rate will go up.Digital payments firm Square said Thursday it was buying a controlling stake in the streaming music platform Tidal from a group led by rap star Jay-Z for $297 million in cash and stock. users playing loads of music) when it comes to calculating their per-stream rate. users not playing much music) therefore have a natural advantage over those with high engagement (i.e. Instead, they pay out a percentage of their total revenue – which is then, crucially, divided up on the basis of an individual artist/label’s popularity across their platform. However, per-stream rates – as cited in TIDAL’s ad – should always be taken with a pinch of caution.Īs MBW explained in our analysis of recent claims from Apple Music, streaming services don’t actually calculate and pay royalties on a per-stream basis. TIDAL’s Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) number will also be dragged up by dint of its TIDAL Hi-Fi tier, which costs double the standard monthly subscription price ($19.99 vs. One reason for that is because TIDAL doesn’t have a free tier – meaning every non-triallist using its service is paying something for the privilege. TIDAL certainly does pay out, on average, more per stream than many of its rivals: data published by The Trichordist last year, for example, suggested that TIDAL was paying $0.00876 per stream, with Spotify way down on $0.00348. In addition to showing off about TIDAL’s hi-def audio capabilities, the ad – as seen on social media this week – makes the bold claim that TIDAL “pays artists 4X more per stream than the other guys”. The acquisition of TIDAL by Square comes as the streaming music platform rolls out an interesting online campaign designed to hook consumers into signing up for its 30-day trial offer. TIDAL’s new online ad claims it pays 4X more per stream “than the other guys” The platform posted an operating loss in 2019 of $55.3 million. Jay-Z initially acquired TIDAL via the vehicle Project Panther Bidco, whose latest financial filings for TIDAL reveal that the platform generated $166.9 million in the calendar year of 2019, up 26.4% YoY. However, it’s not far off half the size of the $600 million enterprise valuation TIDAL achieved when telco Sprint acquired a 33% stake in the music platform for $200 million in 2017. For Jay-Z, a $350 million sale represents a multiple of around seven times on the €50 million (approx $56 million) he paid to acquire TIDAL – then linked to Scandinavian service WimP – in 2015.
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