Tidal Loses CEO

[james45974]

1 minute ago, crenca said:

 

This is a real possibility I think.  Although I give it less than say, 33%...

I don't have a horse in this race, don't use Tidal or Sprint but I find the business part of the news interesting.  A wild card is the talk of a T-Mobile / Sprint merger recently in the news.  Also, not sure about GUTB's scenario but to get to an even more basic argument, if the bean counters don't see any value in the audiophile market in terms of potentially making money, which after all is the bottom line, then sayonara!

[james45974]

12 minutes ago, trappy said:

The only thing I'd say against that is what is Tidal without the lossless / Tidal Masters material? It's really the only distinction they have vs Spotify, etc. 

and even that is not getting the subscriber base numbers moving up much at all in the whole scheme of things!

[james45974]

Market Cap of Sprint 34.15 billion

Market Cap of T-Mobile 54.33 billion

Market Cap of Softbank 9.79 trillion

Market Cap of Tidal, peanuts! (couldn't find a market cap value) $600 million value(?)

 

Market Cap of Spotify, potentially 11-13 billion, waiting for an IPO

Market Cap of Pandora 70.54 billion

Market Cap of Apple 803.6 billion

 

I'm not a finance person, maybe someone could help the discussion!  

 

I would think that the people at Roon, Tidal, and MQA may have some restless nights ahead!

[james45974]

12 minutes ago, rickca said:

I doubt that TIDAL is going to drop their CD quality or MQA streaming.  It is what differentiates TIDAL from other services.  Since Spotify is considering hi-res, the most pressing issue for TIDAL may be how to retain its current subscribers and grow faster.

 

There is that audiophile conceit again of thinking that they are any kind of market or trend setters!

 

Dr. Seuss comes to mind and the audiophile community are a population of Whos, members of a minuscule community on a speck of dust!  All we have to do is make noises in greater amounts!  Everyone turn up the volume and open your windows!

[james45974]

24 minutes ago, rickca said:

I don't know where you got that from my post.  I was just talking about a business issue.

I apologize for misunderstanding, I took your thought about Tidal keeping CD and Master quality as something that will make a difference in the grand scheme of things, market-wise!

[james45974]

1 hour ago, eternaloptimist said:

 

Upvote for the Whos analogy... priceless...!

At some level it was meant to vent a little frustration, not at the audiophile community, but at the population in general.  I wish there was more of an interest in quality music reproduction, and by extension equipment, in general.  I see what is happening in the video side of entertainment, HiDef saturated the market so quickly, taking over picture tube displays, 4K coming up now, and 8K in the future, even on your phone, and the audio world is still stuck on mp3 for general every day use for the larger population!  I want at least CD quality, if not higher, streaming to be successful which would be good for everyone! 

[james45974]

I wish Jay Leno was around to do his Jaywalking bit and ask people on the street who or what is Tidal.  I bet he would have an almost 100 percent failure rate.  Ask people who or what is Spotify or Pandora and there would be a better success rate.  Not to fault Tidal, but it takes money and time to develop brand familiarity, and potential success, not just access to higher quality streaming.

[james45974]

33 minutes ago, rickca said:

The same thing is going on in video, really.  Most people watch horribly compressed HD from their cable TV provider or Netflix or HBO Now.  

 

When I rent a Blu-Ray from Redbox, it still asks me if I'm sure I want a Blu-Ray rather than a DVD.

Thanks for that, I don't even have a TV hooked up at my house!  But they are watching that horribly compressed HD on screens with ever increasing resolution.

 

I don't know for sure, but I would bet that here in the US at least the predominate way of consuming music is through a smart phone.  No need to bother with high def music, who can tell the difference anyway!  And I understand that the most common vehicle for streaming is YouTube!

 

Even if Sprint's investment in Tidal gets the app and icon installed on all Sprint service branded phones that is still not very impressive.  I have a Samsung phone through ATT and the amount of bloatware is incredible!  To most people Tidal would be just another piece of bloatware on their phone.  You have to get over the hurdle of people just trying it out.  Then when they are hit with up to $19.95 month to stream music that has no real perceptible quality difference on a phone than what they can get for free the jig is up!

 

Statistics on the following chart from last fall

[james45974]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I don't consider YouTube a music streaming service because its product is vastly different from the others. In all other areas we separate audio from video, except here. 

 

 

Chris, to borrow a phrase from the news media, get out of the audio echo chamber!  People stream music over YouTube, it is a competitor to all the audio streaming services! 

[james45974]

48 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I'm well aware of this. However, the product is used in a vastly different way. If it was a real streaming service it would be embedded in cars like Pandora or Android Auto. Plus, please separate the music streaming from non music streaming on YouTube and show me the numbers. 

 

Think about the experience between YouTube and streaming services. It's vastly different. Try riding the train to work and using YouTube to listen to music. It's not as popular as a music service as people think. 

I guess I don't see the difference in use as relevant to the discussion.  The chart in my earlier post attempted to put a number to the number of "music consumers" using YouTube.  To minimize or compartmentalize the market effect of YouTube, or Vimeo for that matter, is like keeping an eye out your front door while your house is broken in at the back door!   

 

Anyway, there still hasn't been a real shakeout in the streaming industry yet, maybe these moves by Sprint, by extension Softbank, and Tidal will be the start of something.

[james45974]

56 minutes ago, patagent said:

 

Not necessarily.  The fixed cost for Spotify and Tidal should be in the same ballpark.  I would rather have 50 million subscribers paying me $10 a month as opposed to 1 million subscribers paying me $20.  The problem with Tidal is not that it has only ~1 million subscribers paying $20 a month.  The problem is that its $10 a month offering isn't doing nearly as well as other stream providers.

I have wondered about this.  Tidal's subscriber numbers seem to have been fairly stagnant lately, depending on whose numbers you believe.  It occurs to me that the audiophile market has been close to tapped out and the only way to get more $20/month subscribers is to expand territoriality.

 

They also seem to have an identity crisis of sorts, are they a low cost, mainstream pop oriented, standard quality outlet or a higher cost, non-pop oriented, higher quality outlet?  The high end isn't really that much interested in the pop end and the pop end isn't that much interested in the high quality end.  They are burning the candle at both ends, can they succeed in both or even one of those markets?

 

There is tons of competition at the low end and if the high end has such promise and potential then someone else would have jumped into the market by now.  Look, Apple has been in the music business with iTunes since April of 2003, 14 years, with enviable brand recognition, infrastructure, and customer base, yet still no perceived interest in higher quality than mp3.  Even Apple Music seems to be kind of a yawner, not taking the world by storm.

 

Another competitor that isn't mentioned much is Amazon Prime. All Prime members have access to streaming music, and as estimated from financial reports earlier this year it is estimated that there are 65 million members in the US and 80 million world wide. 

 

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/17/amazon-hints-at-its-big-secret-how-many-prime-members-it-has.html'

 

I feel that the world of streaming revolves around the concept of "good enough" for most people.  They don't actively shop around because their familiar service is good enough and there really isn't much incentive to change.

[james45974]

16 minutes ago, Sal1950 said:

Agreed. If you look at Spotify and the $10 320 mbs tier, the sound quality takes some good gear and ear to hear the difference from lossless much of the time. Joe Sixpack is perfectly happy there and the audiophile market doesn't wheel enough numbers. With the labels setting the costs there's no way to competitively market based on price. From everything I read Tidal has a ways to go before they can attract customers for Spotify based on the ergonomics. The future will be interesting.

Sal, this brings up a question in my mind.  I am not a student of the streaming business but I wonder where the growth is going to be coming from in this segment.  Is the business starting to reach a plateau of customers where the only growth is from cannibalizing your competitors?  How is the conversion rate from free to paid subscriptions?  Are new customers in new markets the only viable growth opportunity?  I don't see people paying multiple companies for streaming services, one and done seems to be the rule if paying by subscription.