TikTok‘s streaming service, TikTok Music, is shutting down after just over a year of operations.
The platform has announced they’ll be ceasing operations of TikTok Music on November 28. “We would like to thank you for all of your support, and we hope you enjoyed the music,” they said in a statement shared to the official website.
Initially teased in 2022 and then launched in July 2023, TikTok Music is currently available in Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Singapore and Mexico.
Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of music business development, told Billboard Pro that the app would be closing the streaming service “in order to focus on our goal of furthering TikTok’s role in driving even greater music listening and value on music streaming services, for the benefit of artists, songwriters and the industry.”
This includes TikTok’s Add To Music feature, which was launched in November last year and allows users to directly save sounds from the app to their streaming platform of choice. Users in the US and UK were initially able to test out the feature before it was rolled out to a further 19 countries the following month.
While TikTok Music seemed to emerge as a direct competitor to existing streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, Obermann said Add To Music represented “a direct link between discovery on TikTok and consumption on a music streaming service,” which made it “easier than ever for music fans to enjoy the full-length song on the music streaming service of their choice, thereby generating even greater value for artists and rights holders.”
It follows the app’s rocky relationship with the music industry, with Universal Music Group (UMG) withdrawing its artists’ music from the platform in January, as a result of both parties’ inability to work out a new deal when their previous agreement expired.
UMG claimed that “TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay”, which it says accounts for one per cent of its revenue.
However, the two companies announced a “new chapter” in May, with a new licensing agreement that will reportedly “deliver improved remuneration for UMG’s songwriters and artists, new promotional and engagement opportunities for their recordings and songs and industry-leading protections with respect to generative AI”, per a press release at the time.