Emmis Broadcasting and Jay-Z's "Tidal" Partnership

Story by Inside Radio
Tidal link: http://listen.tidalhifi.com/

“Hot 97” WQHT, New York has traditionally streamed its annual Summer Jam festival on its own platforms. But yesterday’s concert from New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium was streamed by the Jay-Z-led Tidal music service. It’s part of a new strategy by Emmis to monetize exclusive content via paid subscriptions.

In place of sponsorship revenue, Emmis sold exclusive rights to a nine-hour live stream of what is arguably the biggest hip-hop concert on the planet to Tidal, which charges $10 or $20 a month and is making exclusive content its unique value proposition.

For Emmis, the partnership is a risky experiment into a new way of monetizing exclusive content. Last year more than 1.3 million viewers tuned in to the Summer Jam stream across multiple distribution partners, including several hundred thousand who watched it on HD TVs.

Even with fans having to buy a Tidal subscription to access the stream, Emmis-New York GM Deon Levingston says he expects the stream to generate a significant online audience. “This is the first step in a new partnership between Emmis and Tidal that both are very excited about,” he says.

Levingston believes a paid subscription model will ultimately allow him to better monetize the concert stream.

But there’s no benchmark for knowing how many fans will pay to stream the show, which he said was “very close” to a 53,000-person sellout before the gates opened yesterday afternoon. “It’s a very risky venture but I think it’s worth the risk,” Levingston says.