Tidal launches free offer, embarks on user-centric payments – Billboard

Tidal is launching a free offering in the United States and introducing a user-centric payment model for its premium subscription offerings, the company announced on Wednesday (November 16th). The moves mark the first major changes under its new parent company Square, which acquired Tidal earlier this year for $ 302 million.

The streaming service now has three tiers from which listeners can choose: Tidal Free, which gives US-based listeners free access to Tidal’s 80 million song catalog; Tidal HiFi, which offers high fidelity sound and offline listening with a new feature called My Activity which will provide daily listening information to listeners for $ 9.99 per month; and Tidal HiFi Plus, a $ 19.99 per month subscription that includes immersive sound options such as Dolby Atmos Music and Sony 360 Audio and premium quality authenticated MQA tracks, plus early access to exclusive offers and upcoming features.

The Tidal HiFi Plus tier is where the revenue from direct payments to artists and Tidal fan-centric royalties will come from. Instead of using the current pro-rata system, which pays rights holders based on their share of total streams, fan-centric royalties will be paid based on the streaming activity of each individual HiFi Plus subscriber. In addition to the new payment structure, Tidal says 10% of HiFi Plus users’ subscription fees will go to their most listened to artist this month (directly to their Cash App account in the US or to their PayPal account. worldwide) in addition to their normal streaming royalties. Listeners will be able to track who their top performers are each month using the My Activity feature.

“For the new artist functionalities, we focused on two big ideas”, Jesse Dorogusker, head of Tidal, tells Billboard. “The first is transparency, making sure there is a direct link between the fans who are listening and their favorite artists. It means showing the data, and it means taking action on it. The second big idea is to create new income opportunities for artists. And these features are just the first steps in that direction.

Tidal says artists must register to access direct artist payments. Currently, the program is invitation-only, but Tidal says it will continue to increase access over the next few months, and it is partnering with distributors such as DistroKid, TuneCore, Stem, CD Baby and Symphonic to enable artists from these platforms to register and receive payments through their respective distributors.

“We have worked with all labels, big and small, to move towards fan-centric royalties,” Dorogusker said. “If it was a slam dunk that it pays all artists, I think it would have been universally adopted and certainly easy for us to evangelize since we have always been at the forefront of the artists who pay the most. If you remember back in the days of buying a CD, if I bought a CD and you bought a CD, it was two CD sales – no one knew or cared how much each of us loved this CD or listened to it or never listened to it. this. And then the introduction of streaming became what was easiest to measure 10 years ago, namely counting streams. It’s probably a swing of the pendulum too far the other way around and it doesn’t really value adding new people to the platform. It does not matter between one person with 1000 streams and 10 people with 100 streams.

“I think if you’re trying to create a rich ecosystem of fans and artists, of course you prefer more clients to fewer clients. Fan-centric royalties just shine a light on what it means to bring new people to the platform and how their behavior relates to royalties, and we’re really excited to promote this conversation.

Tidal is the second leading streaming service to introduce a user-centric streaming model, after SoundCloud rolled out its royalties for independent artists in March. “We know that others have experienced [user-centric] in the market, but it hasn’t really been done on a large scale, ”says Lior tibon, chief operating officer of Tidal. “So this is really the first time to our knowledge that a service has launched this with more than 100 partners – major labels, independent labels and distributors.”

Regarding the free tier, Tidal will not yet introduce ads to listeners, but will “interrupt” them with prompts to upgrade to a paid tier and provide a more limited experience, with less access to content at the same time. application, and no access to features such as lyrics, offline downloads and lower audio quality. “It’s something that’s going to come from our own operating budget,” Tibon said when asked how Tidal would pay artists for streams on Tidal Free without ad revenue. “We’re going to assess as we go along in terms of different behavioral aspects and other considerations, if we want to introduce some type of monetization later.”

Tidal’s changes are fundamental changes in the streaming ecosystem that have yet to be accomplished on this scale. Square’s goal of putting more money in the pockets of artists and rights holders appears to be quickly being achieved, and now the question arises as to whether Tidal will be able to attract audiences who will make those dollars meaningful to them. the majority of artists.

With two notable streaming services in SoundCloud and Tidal shifting in part to user-centric payment models and Tidal paying a portion of their subscription revenue directly each month to artists, the prevailing ideas on how to improve the The streaming ecosystem for rights holders is no longer theoretical, there will soon be data to prove whether the status quo needs to change.