TIDAL is scrapping the Direct Pay Artists program to invest more in emerging artists

Block-owned music streaming service TIDAL is changing the way artists are paid after an experimental program failed to deliver results.

Unlike Spotify and other industry leaders, who each pay musicians small fractions (…of fractions) of cents, TIDAL has taken a more resourceful approach to artist payments. The platform, which targets consumers looking for a high-quality audio experience, introduced an innovative direct-to-artist (DAP) payment program last year. For customers on the $19.99/month HiFi Plus tier, the artist with the most streams from each individual subscriber earns 10% of their subscription cost.

That plan turned out not to work. In April, TIDAL will end the DAP program.

“The DAP program only focused on the listener’s No. 1 artist, leaving much, much less room for emerging artists to get paid,” TIDAL CEO Jesse Dorogusker wrote in a blog post. Twitter thread Today. He said 70,000 performers signed up for the show but only paid $500,000, which is “well below” TIDAL’s goal.

Instead of DAP, TIDAL is putting more money into its TIDAL Rising program, which nurtures emerging musicians. Dorogusker said TIDAL will invest at least $5 million in this program, more than 10 times what it has paid artists through DAP since early 2022.

Crescent MAREA supports select emerging artists by creating documentaries and other promotional materials to accelerate their careers; Alumni of the show include Alessia Cara, Chloe x Halle and 21 Savage. Dorogusker referenced an ongoing TIDAL initiative Georgiawhich brought four local artists to the platform as an example of the kind of shows we can most expect to see.

For those interested in more artist-friendly streaming payments, this news may seem a little bittersweet. But it’s possible that DAP just didn’t work because TIDAL doesn’t have as many subscribers compared to the competition: Last year, TIDAL had less than 2% of the global music streaming subscription market, while Spotify had 31%. . had 15%. Also, as Dorogusker pointed out, the DAP model was a bit counterintuitive, as payments only went to the subscriber’s top artist. Deezer, a French music streaming platform, has proposed moving to a user-centric payment system that would distribute a user’s subscription fee proportionally among all the artists they listen to. However, the broadcaster could not implement this because the tags must accept the experimental system.