Subscribe
for just...
plus
By now, you have already heard about the new music streaming service called Tidal. It's created and backed by a whole slew of superstars, like Alicia Keys, Arcade Fire's Win Butler and Regine Chassagne, Beyonce, Daft Punk, Jack White, Jason Aldean, J. Cole, Jay Z, Kanye West, Deadmau5, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna and Usher.
Apparently, they will save the music industry, bring back royalties to the artists, and... kill Batman (if you are to believe the internet).
But will they? ... or have they just created a Spotify clone? And what about all the other platforms?
Well, aside from the obvious design similarities, it's actually a surprisingly difficult question to answer. But let's take a look at the economics of all these 'platforms'. Not just Tidal and Spotify, but also services like Netflix and the ones trying to do the same for newspapers.
What are the trends involved. What are the challenges they face. And what is the future outlook, from an economic perspective, for each?
The main problem with many of these services is that they are asking for far less money than people are willing to pay. Netflix is a perfect example of this.
If we go back to the time before Netflix and we looked at how much people were willing to pay for TV/movies, we find that it was around $0.5 to $1 per hour. The way I calculate this is by looking at the average cost of a TV package in the past, divided by the number of hours people spend watching TV during the same period.
This gives us a baseline for how much people are willing to spend. Roughly, $1 per hour of basic entertainment.
Register to try out Baekdal Plus completely for free for one week.
Baekdal Plus is your premium destination for trends and analysis for the media industry. Every year you get 25 reports about the future media trends, business and editorial strategies, monetization analysis and insights about how to use analytics specifically for publishers.
As a subscriber, you also get full access to all the Plus reports (more than 200) published over the past 8 years, as well as the ability to share what you read.
Yes, of course, please write to plus@baekdal.com and I will send you a regular invoice that you can pay via your bank. I will need your company name, address and VAT number (if within the EU). Also, please note that due to this process being manual, this will be for an annual subscription only.
Yes, please write to plus@baekdal.com for details. But for 25-99 users: the price is 20% off the subscription price ($79/year per user), 100+ users is a fixed price at $5,000 (for all combined).
Yes, please head over to Baekdal Media to read about consulting where I can help you with strategy reviews, trend and strategy reports, and strategic guidance for you media company or a specific publication.
Why do people pay for media? Let's map it out.
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $9
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $9
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $9
Many newspapers have opened up their paywalls because of the pandemic. But this is a bad idea.
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $9
The market for podcasts is growing, but we still haven't found a good way to do premium podcasts
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $9
taxing advertising will not give publishers more money.
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $9
A deep dive into the data behind The Correspondent's crowdfunding campaign.
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $9
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $9
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $9
Let's take a deep dive into the complex world of paywalls.
Free for subscribers
...or full access for $9
Founder, media analyst, author, and publisher. Follow on Twitter
"Thomas Baekdal is one of Scandinavia's most sought-after experts in the digitization of media companies. He has made himself known for his analysis of how digitization has changed the way we consume media."
Swedish business magazine, Resumé
plus
plus
plus
free
plus
plus