Reference no: EM132985848

Question 1: How does the Tidal business model differ from its rivals, and what strategic advantages does this give them?

Question 2: How might continuing controversies impact Tidal's strategy and business model, and how do you believe they should respond?

Question 3: How might the purchase of Tidal by Square impact its business strategy? What are the risks and opportunities?

Introduction

• The purpose of this case study is to facilitate analysis of music streaming service Tidal in terms of its organisational purpose, business strategy and business model.
• Jack Dorsey, CEO of both Twitter and Square, a financial payments company, has (through Square) recently purchased a majority stake in Tidal, the music streaming service (Vincent, 2021). The purchase surprised some because Tidal was not seen to be successful, with only a fraction of the market share of industry leaders Spotify, Apple and Amazon.
• When asked why a financial services company would buy a music streaming service, he responded, "to find new ways for artists to support their work". He now has the challenge of making that happen.

Case Study:

• Before it became known as Tidal, the music streaming service associated with American hip-hop royalty, the company Aspiro was founded in 1998 by three Swedish telecoms executives (Jorgen Adolfsson, Christer Mansson and Klas Hallqvist ) to sell interactive games, ringtones and a fax messaging system to mobile networks (McAlone, 2016).
• They successfully developed partnerships with European phone manufacturers like Ericsson and Nokia to place Aspiro services before millions of customers.
• Aspiro's shift to music streaming came in 2010 when they joined forces with Norwegian retailer Platekompaniet to create WiMP that delivered higher quality audio than mainstream music streaming competitors such as Spotify and Pandora. Due to Aspiro's successful strategy in building partnerships with telecom companies, WiMP became a success, especially after their brand name was changed to 'Tidal' in English-speaking countries (2014). Despite its popularity amongst hardcore audiophiles, however, the Tidal service struggled financially.
• The most pivotal moment in Tidal's history came in January 2015 when Jay Z, the American rapper (also known as Shawn Carter), bought Aspiro for $56 million with his newly created company Project Panther Bidco (Sisario, 2015).
• In 2017, Aspiro/Tidal partnered with the Uk-based company Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) to deliver lossless 'master-quality recordings' (96 kHz / 24-bit) with the highest possible audio quality. Tidal is the only streaming company to offer this MQA service (Musically, 2017). The library of master-quality tracks was substantially expanded in 2020 (MQA, 2020)
• In addition to the music's higher audio quality, Tidal was promoted as paying fairer (higher) royalties to both artists and songwriters. Artists have publicly noted that Aspiro/Tidal have paid artist royalties per track of over three times those paid by Spotify. In an interview with Billboard magazine, Jay Z said, "Will artists make more money? Even if it means less profit for our bottom line? Absolutely".
• Tidal was therefore promoted as an artist-backed venture to protect artists rights in contrast with the low royalties received from other popular streaming services. At a relaunch party on 30 March 2015, several big names, including Alicia Keys, Arcade Fire, Beyonce, Chris Martin, Jack White, Kanye West and Madonna, went on stage to publicly support Tidal.
• Aspire/Tidal have used their artist connections to gain exclusive releases (mainly within the rap or hip-hop genres) that would not be available on other streaming sites ( initially at least). In January 2016, Tidal released Rihanna's Anti as a one-week exclusive stream (Goodman, 2016), and in February 2016, Kanye West's Life of Pablo also received an exclusive stream. In 2017, Jay Z released his own album 4:44, as an exclusive on Tidal (Aswad, 2017). These releases were successful in significantly boosting Tidal subscribers.
• Tidal streaming plans are significantly more expensive than plans for main competitors Spotify, Apple and Amazon Prime to reflect both artist payments and higher quality audio. Tidal features a similarly sized library to market leader Spotify (around 70 million songs), and the user interface has been designed to mirror Spotify's to limit switching resistance.

Controversies

• Despite support from both many artists and audiophiles, Tidal has also attracted criticism and controversy. Lily Allen raised concerns that the high price of Tidal streaming plans combined with regular exclusives would promote piracy (illegal downloads). Following the exclusive release of the Kanye West album Life of Pablo, the album was pirated over 500,000 times on its first day alone (Business Insider, 2016)
• The high audio quality has also been criticised. Some argue that most listeners would not distinguish the difference in audio quality without high-quality headphones, which Jay Z can also sell you.
• In February 2016, the band 'The American Dollar' launched a $5m lawsuit against Tidal for unpaid royalties (Frydenlund, 2016). Tidal responded, saying royalty payments were up to date but removed the band's songs from their library. In 2017, Kanye West quit Tidal, claiming the service owed him $3m in unpaid royalties and reimbursements (Music Business Worldwide, 2017).
• In 2017 and 2018, Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringslev (Today's Business) produced reports accusing Tidal of falsifying subscriber counts and streaming numbers (BBC, 2018). These allegations led to the Norwegian collection society TONO filing an official complaint against Tidal. The alleged exaggeration of subscriber numbers has also led to disputes with the former shareholders of Aspiro and the firing of senior executives at Tidal.
• On 2 March 2021, Square Inc, the financial services company founded by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, acquired a majority stake in Tidal for $297 million. JAY Z would join the Square board in the new structure, and original artists would become the second-largest group of shareholders in Square.

Conclusion

• The Tidal music streaming service offers higher audio quality and seeks to support artists by paying them higher royalties than Spotify, Apple, and Amazon. However, it has not been successful in gaining significant market share or generating royalty revenue for artists.
• With Twitter CEO Jack Dempsey as the new owner, can Twitter meet its objectives of 'finding new ways for artists to support their work'?