Jay-Z’s music streaming service, Tidal, was hailed as the messiah for the artists as it seemed that these artists were not getting a fair deal from the music streaming distribution companies like Spotify and Pandora. It was launched with fan fare replete with the biggest music stars including Beyonce, Madonna, Ninja. Tidal was a bit pricier than competitors like Spotify and Pandora but was said to offer a better deal to artists and give users higher quality audio.
But all is not well with Tidal.
In just two weeks after it broke into the U.S. iPhone top 20 download chart, the app has crashed out of the top 700. In less than a month, the CEO, Andy Chen, was let go in a “streamlining” move. A new CEO Peter Tonstad has been brought in to take the helm of affairs. And this new CEO has to come up with a strategy to fight the incumbents who are now rising.
On the 20th of April, the incumbents, Spotify and Pandora, occupied No. 3 and No. 4 on the U.S. iPhone revenue chart, respectively.
It even seems that the Spotify’s download upward performance started when Tidal’s campaign started talking negatively about its little payouts. According to BGR, Spotify surged back into the iPad top 40 download chart on March 31st, right when Tidal’s anti-Spotify invective hit its peak in American media. This had not happened since November 2014.
Apparently Tidal’s attacks on Spotify and Pandora actually managed to increase public awareness of the services, boosting Spotify’s download performance in particular at the end of March. And now, a few weeks later, the combined revenue performance of the two music apps is hitting a new milestone.
Peter Tonstad really has his work cut out for him. Since the target market for this service is teenagers without disposable income, it seems that this more expensive service may not be the right way.
