Blog: Tidal

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

As Spotify joins the live audio shutdown, can Amp and Spaces get it right?

Cover image for As Spotify joins the live audio shutdown, can Amp and Spaces get it right?

Annie Langston

12 Apr 2023

On the heels of cancelling several live audio shows, Spotify is now entirely shutting down its live audio app Spotify Live . Spotify was one of many major platforms to invest in live audio after Clubhouse kickstarted the craze during the Covid-19 pandemic, and it is not the only company now struggling to resuscitate the format.

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Climate crisis awareness is entwined with entertainment behaviour

Cover image for Climate crisis awareness is entwined with entertainment behaviour

Hanna Kahlert

2 Feb 2022

Media and Marketing

Audience Insight

Despite the barrage of high-profile news items featuring so far in 2022, the climate crisis remains the high-stakes backdrop to our global future. MIDiA Research recently fielded a survey asking about consumers’ climate-conscious behaviours, cross-segmented against their normal entertainment proclivities – and some of the findings are surprising.

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NFL Adding Music to Its Playbook

Cover image for NFL Adding Music to Its Playbook

Alistair Taylor

4 Nov 2019

archived footage

curated playlists

The NFL continues expanding its reach with the news that it is providing both video and audio content to global streaming services Spotify and Tidal. This follows the NFL’s recently- announced partnerships with social platforms TikTok, Reddit, Facebook and YouTube.

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Disney, Netflix and the Squeezed Middle: The Real Story Behind Net Neutrality

Cover image for Disney, Netflix and the Squeezed Middle: The Real Story Behind Net Neutrality

Mark Mulligan

15 Dec 2017

Unless you have been hiding under a rock this last couple of weeks you’ll have heard at least something about the build up to the decision over turning net neutrality in the US, a decision that was confirmed yesterday.

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What The End Of The Net Neutrality Could Mean For Streaming Businesses

Tim Mulligan

8 Dec 2017

On December 14th the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will vote on whether or not to end the regulation around net neutrality. New FCC Chairman Ajit Pai believes that net neutrality issues are no longer needed, because the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can protect consumers from broadband providers.

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Announcing MIDiA’s Streaming Services Market Shares Report

Cover image for Announcing MIDiA’s Streaming Services Market Shares Report

Mark Mulligan

3 Nov 2017

amazon music unlimited

As the streaming music market matures, the bar is continually raised for the quality of data required, both in terms of granularity and accuracy. At MIDiA we have worked hard to earn a reputation for high-quality, reliable datasets that go far beyond what is available elsewhere.

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Is QQ Music Worth $10 Billion?

Cover image for Is QQ Music Worth $10 Billion?

Mark Mulligan

7 Sep 2017

Western appetite for the Chinese market has long been based upon accessing the 1.4 billion consumers. This has in turn impacted valuations of Chinese companies, particularly when eager western investors are involved.

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Why Net Neutrality Is Central To The Streaming Economy

Tim Mulligan

13 Jul 2017

The existential question of the digital era is net neutrality. Since the utopian days of 1989 when World Wide Web pioneer Tim Berners-Lee first connected his colleagues via computers at CERN in Switzerland, the emerging interconnected world of academics and entrepreneurs has been engaged in an ongoing battle of the underlying principles of the infrastructure underpinning the internet.

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The Art of Windowing: Why 4:44 is a Different Kind of Exclusive

Zach Fuller

5 Jul 2017

For a brief moment last year, windowing seemed like the future of music streaming. Already common practice in the film-industry, the strategy was being touted as a way of utilising artist fan engagement to drive registrations (both freemium and paid) to streaming services, thus engendering the payment behaviours that would ultimately grow the industry.

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How Soundcloud Could Transform Deezer’s Market Narrative

Cover image for How Soundcloud Could Transform Deezer’s Market Narrative

Mark Mulligan

4 Jul 2017

Access Industries

Artist discovery

News has emerged of Deezer being a potential buyer of troubled Soundcloud. This follows on from Spotify’s prolonged but ultimately abortive courting last year . Soundcloud was once a streaming powerhouse, with 175 million Monthly Active Users reported in October 2014.

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Announcing MIDiA’s State Of The Streaming Nation 2 Report

Cover image for Announcing MIDiA’s State Of The Streaming Nation 2 Report

Mark Mulligan

5 Jun 2017

2016 was the year that streaming turned the recorded music business into a good news story, with revenue growth so strong that it drove nearly a billion dollars of total growth. Leading streaming services spent the year competing with ever more impressive metrics while playlisting and streaming exclusives became cornerstones of the wider music market both culturally and commercially.

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Who’s Leading The Streaming Music Pack?

Cover image for Who’s Leading The Streaming Music Pack?

Mark Mulligan

25 May 2017

Google Play Music All Access

At MIDiA Research we are currently in the final stages of producing the update to our annual landmark report: The State Of The Streaming Nation, a report which compiles every streaming market data point you could possibly need.

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MIDiA Research Predictions 2017: The Year Of The Platform

Mark Mulligan

13 Dec 2016

Access Industries

Following an 84% success rate for our 2016 Predictions report, we today launch our 2017 predictions report: ‘ MIDiA Research Predictions 2017: The Year Of The Platform’. The report is immediately available to all MIDiA subscription clients and can also be purchased for individual download from our report store here.

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How Spotify Can Become A Next Generation “Label”

Mark Mulligan

21 Oct 2016

Access Industries

One of the themes my MIDiA colleague Tim Mulligan (the name’s no coincidence, he’s my brother too!) has been developing over in our online video research is that of next generation TV operators. With the traditional pay-TV model buckling under the pressure of countless streaming subscriptions services like Netflix (there are more than 50 services in the US alone) pay-TV companies have responded with countless apps of their own such as HBO Go and CBS All Access.

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Technology Roots: Why Hip-Hop and Dance Leaves Rock Behind in the Streaming Era

Zach Fuller

19 Aug 2016

chance the rapper

The Tidal, Spotify and Apple Music exclusives Cold-War reveals something telling: from Drake, to Chance the Rapper, Frank Ocean and The Weeknd, the quest to garner exclusives has been done almost entirely with R&B, Hip-Hop and Dance artists, with minimal efforts to secure the same deals for Rock musicians.

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Soundcloud, Amazon, Tidal: Streaming’s Other Runners

Cover image for Soundcloud, Amazon, Tidal: Streaming’s Other Runners

Mark Mulligan

16 Jun 2016

Music streaming

Apple, Spotify and YouTube have all been grabbing the streaming headlines of late, albeit for different reasons. While these companies will continue to set the pace over the next couple of years (again, for different reasons) there is much more to the streaming market than these three.

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A High Tide Rises All Streaming Boats, For Now…

Cover image for A High Tide Rises All Streaming Boats, For Now…

Mark Mulligan

27 Apr 2016

Music Subscriptions

Against the backdrop of the first quarterly drop in revenue in 13 years and a sharp decline in China revenue, Apple Music at least had some good news in the shape of continued solid growth for Apple Music, hitting 13 million subscribers.

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How Apple Subscriptions Will Change Streaming

Mark Mulligan

1 Apr 2015

All of the talk this week has been of Jay-Z’s TIDAL and how it might change the streaming market. In reality it is another new entrant that will have biggest near term impact: Apple’s forthcoming music subscription service, which is built on foundations of Beats Music.

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