Last month Jay Z unveiled his new streaming service, Tidal, alongside some of his fellow investors. Hov has managed to convince some of the biggest names in the music industry to invest in his new enterprise with a 3% share in the company. But things are not going swimmingly for Tidal (pun intended), and it looks like Mr Carter will have a very empty grammy's table next year! Despite promising high quality streaming and exclusive content from the signees themselves, Jay Z's Tidal dreams seem to be crashing down around him (last one I promise). So why is it going so wrong?
Well to start with, enlisting some of the richest people in music to talk about how they don't get enough money for their efforts, isn't the smartest move! The artists said that they wanted to take charge of streaming's future, amid criticism by musicians -- including Taylor Swift -- that industry leader Spotify offers insufficient compensation. But couldn't they see that an argument based on "insufficient compensation" wasn't going to convince the millions of people who barely make ends meat! Perhaps they should have listened to British band Mumford and Sons, who voiced dismay at the sight of highly paid stars complaining about payments during Tidal's launch party. In a recent interview, lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie, Ben Gibbard, gave his thoughts about the plight of these celebs;
“I think they totally blew it by bringing out a bunch of millionaires and billionaires and then having them all complain about not being paid....That’s why this thing is going to fail miserably.”
A little harsh in my opinion, but I can see where he is coming from. Tidal don't make their case for fair play when unlike their main rival Spotify, it doesn't have any free level to subscriptions. This means even if you just want to get a taste of the new streaming service, you need to be prepared to part with at least £9.99 a month for the pleasure. Tidal is also relying on quality over quantity, as Tidal's count of 25 million tracks is 5 million less than Spotify. I don't know about you, but I would much prefer a bigger music catalogue than a marginal improvement in sound quality. I mean, how many times have you heard your friends complain about the sound clarity on Spotify? Despite these criticisms, Jay Z is still adamant that his high quality service will be successful, it just needs time.
"We are here for the long haul. Please give us a chance to grow and get better"
But the biggest problem facing Tidal going forward is how similar it is to the other streaming platforms. For a new business to be successful it needs to fill a gap in the market. So what gap is Tidal filling? Russ Crupnick, managing partner of streaming industry research firm MusicWatch, sums up the lack of innovation;
"..the product is pretty good, but there’s nothing special about it. Where Spotify has a free option and allows users to create on-demand playlists with a social element, and Pandora generates free custom radio stations, Tidal is just an app that streams music – for a hefty price."
Jay Z hopes to differentiate Tidal from competitors by locking down exclusive streaming windows with artists. The service will be signing first-window deals with artists, wherein music would be made available on Tidal first before being released on other streaming services. The other incentive is its exclusive content. But this might be good enough.
According to The Wrap, people don’t seem to care much about exclusive content – or they find ways to listen without paying. For example, Beyonce's new video 'Die with you' was only made available to Tidal subscribers, but ended up on Youtube one a day later! So no offence to the n**as in Paris rapper, but he is going to need to come up with something a lot better if he is going to convince me to put my hand in my pocket!
No comments:
Post a Comment