Tidal (service)
Tidal (stylized in all caps) is a Norwegian-American music streaming service, launched in 2014 by Swedish public company Aspiro. Tidal is now majority-owned by Block, Inc., an American payment processing company that is owned by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey.[2]
Developer
With distribution agreements with all three major record labels and many independent labels,[3] Tidal claims to provide access to more than 80 million tracks and 350,000 music videos.[4] Starting April 10, 2024, Tidal merged its two subscription plans to become one simply named Tidal, which offers the same quality as the former HiFi Plus plan (FLAC HiRes 24-bit/192KHz and MQA – 24-bit/352.8 kHz).[5] Tidal claims to pay the highest percentage of royalties to music artists and songwriters within the music streaming market.[6]
In March 2015, Aspiro was acquired by Project Panther Bidco Ltd., which relaunched the service with a mass-marketing campaign, promoting it as the first artist-owned streaming service.[7] In January 2017, Sprint Corporation bought 33% of Tidal for a reported $200 million. In March 2021, Block, then known as Square, agreed to pay $297 million for majority ownership of Tidal.[8] In June, 2022, through the disclosure of the Annual Stockholder Meeting 2022, Block reported that the stake acquired in the Tidal music service was 86.8%.[9]
While some observers praised the high-fidelity audio quality, and higher subscription fees that would result in higher royalties to the artists and songwriters, others felt the high subscription fees and exclusive Tidal content from the artists involved could lead to more music piracy. Tidal claimed to have over 3 million subscribers in 2016,[10] although the veracity of those claims and the company's reported streaming numbers have been questioned.[11] As of March 2021, Tidal operates in 61 countries.[12]
History[edit]
Branching off from WiMP, which was launched in Norway in 2010 and later available in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Poland, Aspiro launched the Tidal brand in the UK, the US, and Canada on October 28, 2014. The launch was supported by Sonos and 15 other home audio manufacturers as integration partners.[13] In January 2015, Tidal launched in five more European countries: Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.[3]
Aspiro was purchased by Project Panther Bidco Ltd. (controlled by American rapper and businessman Jay-Z) for SEK 466 million (USD $56.2 million) in January 2015.[14][15] Before the acquisition of Aspiro, Jay-Z stated in an interview with Billboard that he was willing to partner with other streaming services to carry out his vision. "We talked to every single service and we explored all the options," he said, "But at the end of the day, we figured if we're going to shape this thing the way we see it, then we need to have independence. And that became a better proposition for us, not an easier one, mind you," he concluded.[16]
On April 16, 2015, it came to public attention that Tidal was closing its original Aspiro offices in Stockholm, terminating the employment for all Swedish employees and the CEO, Andy Chen.[17] The company refused to comment on closing the offices but confirmed that Andy Chen had been replaced as CEO by Peter Tonstad.[18] In September 2015, Tidal began selling digital downloads and CDs.[19] In December 2015, Tidal appointed Jeff Toig as CEO of the company. Toig left the company in March 2017.[20] Richard Sanders was announced as CEO in August 2017.[21]
In January 2017, the company announced a partnership with British company Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) which they claim delivers master-quality recordings at typically 96 kHz / 24-bit with the highest possible resolution to its HiFi subscribers. Tidal is the only streaming company to offer MQA.[22] MQA is a three part process applied to digital audio music recordings consisting of: 1) modifying and controlling the end to end digital filter response; 2) preparing the high-quality audio for transfer to a smartphone or audio device using a lossy audio compression format; and 3) decompressing the recording for playback.[23] On January 23, 2017, US mobile carrier Sprint announced that they were buying a 33 percent stake in Tidal,[24] and it was reported that Sprint would offer exclusive content to Sprint customers.[25] In September 2017, Tidal partnered with Mercedes-Benz's web portal app.[26] American rapper Nicki Minaj starred in a commercial promoting the Mercedes partnership.[27] The catalog available in MQA on Tidal currently comprises certain albums and singles from Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, its affiliates and certain independent distributors, including AvidPlay service provided by Avid Technology.[28] Since November 2020, the largest part of the MQA catalog available on Tidal is that of Warner Music Group and its affiliates, which was made available as part of a new deal with MQA and Warner Music Group itself.[29] In the past, Sony Music also offered certain albums and singles from their catalog in MQA on Tidal, but their quality were later reduced; exceptions include Beyoncé's albums Lemonade and Homecoming: The Live Album, both released by Parkwood Entertainment and distributed by Sony Music's label Columbia Records (likely most possible reason of these exceptions is Tidal's ownership – Jay-Z is Beyoncé's husband).
In 2017, Tidal announced a series of podcasts to launch the same year.[30] American rappers Fat Joe and Joey Badass hosted "Coca Vision" and "47 Minutes" respectively.[31][32]
In July 2019, Tidal expanded their credits feature and launched interactive official music credits on the platform, allowing user to click on musicians and other contributors.[33][34] These credits are supplied by the labels and artists direct to Tidal.[35]
In March 2021, it was announced that financial technology company Square, Inc. had reached an agreement to acquire majority ownership of Tidal. Square would pay $297 million in cash and stock for Tidal, and Jay-Z would have a board position. Jay-Z and other artists who own stock in Tidal would remain stakeholders.[36][37]
In November 2021, Tidal introduced a free tier for the first time, though exclusively for the United States.[38] CD-quality HiFi audio was also introduced to all paid plans, while keeping MQA-quality audio exclusive for the new HiFi Plus plan.[38]
Tidal's download store closed in October 2022.[39]
Tidal laid off more than 10% of its staff in December 2023.[40]
Finances and royalties[edit]
In 2015, one artist stated that artist royalties per track from Aspiro/Tidal were then over three times those paid by Spotify, but that royalties may decrease to provide a sufficient return on investment.[74] Jay-Z commented in an interview to Billboard that artists would be paid more by being streamed on Tidal than with Spotify, stating "Will artists make more money? Even if it means less profit for our bottom line? Absolutely."[16] In the same interview, he also stressed the service was for people "lower down on the food chain".[16]
On February 27, 2016, Yesh Music, LLC and John Emanuele from the band The American Dollar launched a $5 million class-action lawsuit that claimed Tidal had to compensate the band for any of the royalty payments accrued from the streaming of the band's 116 copyrighted songs. The suit also accused Tidal of using faulty numbers to payout artists while also having undercut these same individuals by 35%. A response from Tidal stated that they were indeed fully up to date on all royalties for the group and had removed said intellectual property from their servers.[75][76][77]
Model[edit]
Platforms[edit]
Tidal has apps available for Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS and Android compatible devices. Tidal is compatible with Apple TV, Roku,[96] CarPlay, Android TV, and Amazon Fire TV.[97]
