“Having unlimited access to 100 million songs is very inexpensive. It’s accessible. It’s great. But it’s very cheap.”
In May, in a broad interview about the streaming industry, TIDE CEO Jesse Dorogusker says MBW that he thinks “the music is relatively underrated and undervalued”.
Now the company is reportedly set to become the latest streaming platform to raise the price of its subscription service, following similar moves by Apple Music, Amazon Music and Deezer.
This is according to user reports posted on a popular Tidal Forum on Reddit, who claim to have been informed by the platform that it will increase the subscription price for its Tidal Hi-FI level. The subscription price will increase from $9.99 to $10.99 per month in the United States. Family plan subscribers will see their monthly charges drop from $14.99 to $16.99.
The price adjustment is expected to take effect on August 1, according to reports. Users in multiple markets have reported receiving notifications from TIDAL informing them of an impending price adjustment for August 1st.
Tidal has not, at the time of writing, responded to MBW’s request for comment and confirmation of which markets will be affected.
THE TIDE The Hi-FI subscription level currently costs $9.99 per month and offers CD quality lossless streams at 44.1kHz/16bit. The platform’s Hi-FI Plus subscription level, meanwhile, costs $19.99 per month and offers Master Quality Authenticated (MQA), Dolby Atmos, sony 360 Reality Audio and HiFi.
This price adjustment by Tidal follows similar moves by other music streaming platforms, including Apple Music, Amazon Music and Deezer.
Amazon Music in January raised his standard individual Amazon Music Unlimited monthly subscription price from $9.99 to $10.99 in US and £9.99 to £10.99 in UK.
This follows Apple Music’s decision to increase its standard monthly subscription price also from $9.99 to $10.99 in the US and £9.99 to £10.99 in the UK.
Deezer too calmly increased its prices, with its Prime The subscription tier now costs £11.99 per month in the UK, €10.99 per month in major European markets like Germany and $10.99 per month in the US.
As Tidal and other platforms adjust their pricing to meet these challenges, Spotifythe biggest player in the music streaming subscription business, has yet to make a similar move, despite calls to do so.
Recent reports have highlighted Spotify’s plans to introduce a more expensive “Supremium” tier, although the company has made no public announcement regarding this offering.
Supremium, which is rumored to launch in non-US markets initially, is expected to include access to Spotify HiFi and a limited number of free audiobooks each month.
Spotify remains the most dominant music streaming platform in the world. In the first quarter of the year, it added Net 5 million premium subscribers to its user base, bringing its total global paid subscriber audience to 210 million.
MBW reported this week that Spotify had 44.4 million US subscribers in February, while Apple Music had 32.6 million, according to new data revealed at the National Music Publishers Association’s annual meeting in June.
Today’s news comes approximately five months after Tidal in partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG) “to explore an innovative new business model for music streaming”.
The music industry around the world
