Jay Z’s Tidal hit the music streaming scene last year, and since then has offered its users high-fidelity music and exclusive content.
The company’s exclusive video content includes over 70 music videos, on-demand videos and short films. That’s in addition to the 36 million songs and 86,000 music videos.
Now, the service has branched out to drama and comedy series in an attempt to expand the service and create better value for money for its users. “If someone is paying for Tidal, we want that to be the best experience they can have,” says Tim Riley, Tidal’s senior VP artist and label relations.
Tidal has ordered two new series: Brooklyn street-life drama Money & Violence season 2, and No Small Talk, a series profiling up-and-coming comedians. Money & Violence season 2 is a 12-episode season, centered on a group of thieves and drug dealers in Flatbush. This will reportedly be available February 9th.
Currently, Tidal offers all episodes of Money & Violence season 1 plus exclusive access to extras and commentary. No Small Talk is hosted by DJ and TV personality Cipha Sounds, and will initially comprise of five 25-30 minute episodes.
Last month, DMN reported that Tidal hit the 1 million subscriber milestone, a massive success. But the service is still struggling to compete with the likes of Spotify, which has free subscriptions tiers available and advertising levels that most users find tolerable. Jay Z is undoubtedly hoping that this new move will help sway customers to the service, and at the very minimum provide value for their existing users.
(Photo by Pieter-Jannick Dijkstra, CC by 2.0)
Another sign that things are not going well.
Another sign that nobody can make a go of it on music alone. The deals are too prohibitive, the margins too thin. (Which kind of explains why “music companies” aren’t bothering, preferring to let the electronic retailers of today fall on their faces like the record stores of yesteryear).
Something else has got to actually pay the bills: Apple TV, Amazon Prime shipping, Tidal’s new series, Spotify’s unconfirmed plans. Anybody else has other irons in the fire and is just trying to reduce consumer friction (Google All Access). And then there’s poor Rhapsody – probably the next to go?
Everybody here at DMN wants streaming to go away. Careful what you wish for. Music is the lazy cousin who won’t get off the couch and go get a job, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious.
It’s a double-edged sword. You can’t make enough money on music streaming alone. But entering into other business ventures costs a lot of money upfront before you actually make anything. Rdio seemingly wasted a lot of money on Vdio. Other streaming companies are threatening to make the same mistake.
I think the video race has already been decided. Good content costs money. Only existing media conglomerates and major players like Netflix and Apple have that kind of money. Rdio failed. Yahoo failed. Tidal will likely fail too.
I think Slacker will go next. Rhapsody might hold out a while longer. But it doesn’t look promising.
There’s too much competition for our time in this age of digital media overload.
There’s one thing all the media companies in the world will never change: there are only 24 hours in a day. There is a limit to the amount of media we can consume.
All of them like hungry animals in the STREAMING CAGE hoping for light in the tunnel if they attack parallel business activity.
THE REALITY:
To many big animals in the STREAMING CAGE w/ only $20B in music subscriptions!
All working very hard to convert $200B of music to ashes.