What Tidal Has to Do to Survive
Much has been written about Tidal since its formal re-coming out party last week. Most everything I’ve read (and said) points to Jay Z’s experiment being a big failture. But maybe there’s something he can do to prevent the coming collapse. Music Industry Blog takes a look.
The continued media feeding frenzy around Jay-Z’s TIDAL demonstrates just how valuable star power is for cutting through the clutter. What has helped sustain interest is Jay-Z’s vision for delivering better value to artists and better experiences for music fans.
It is a tall order given that TIDAL has to operate under the same basic licensing framework as all other streaming services, the nub of which is paying c. 70% of all revenues to rights holders and having no control over how much of that gets paid back to artists and songwriters. Working within the constraints of the standard subscription model TIDAL will quite simply not be able to deliver on its aspirations.
But if TIDAL is willing to create a new model to layer on top of it, then it can do something truly transformational. Here’s how.
