Time’s Up: TikTok Music Is Shutting Down

TikTok plans to end its subscription streaming service, TikTok Music, the company announced on Tuesday (Sept. 24). TikTok Music, which is currently available in Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Singapore and Mexico, will wind down on Nov. 28.

The company will pivot to focus its efforts on the “Add to Music App,” which launched last November and allows users to save a track they discover on TikTok to their preferred streaming service with a few clicks.

“Our Add to Music App feature has already enabled hundreds of millions of track saves to playlists on partner music streaming services,” Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of music business development, said in a statement. “We will be closing TikTok Music at the end of November 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.”

To the extent that the “Add to Music App” sends more TikTok users to streaming services to listen to songs they found first via short-form video, the music business views this as a win. The industry believes TikTok doesn’t pay enough when music is consumed on the platform, leading to a headline-grabbing stand-off with Universal Music Group earlier this year. Music rights holders are happier, however, with the rates at Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.

TikTok launched TikTok Music — Obermann described it as “a new kind of service that combines the power of music discovery on TikTok with a best-in-class streaming service” — in Indonesia and Brazil in July 2023. It expanded to Australia, Singapore, and Mexico in October of that year.

“TikTok Music will make it easy for people to save, download and share their favorite viral tracks from TikTok,” Obermann said in a statement at the time. “We are excited about the opportunities TikTok Music presents for both music fans and artists, and the great potential it has for driving significant value to the music industry.”

The company rolled out the “Add to Music App” soon after, making it available to U.S. and U.K. users in November. The language Obermann used to describe this new feature wasn’t all that different from the way he talked about TikTok Music.

The “Add to Music App” represents “a direct link between discovery on TikTok and consumption on a music streaming service,” Obermann said, “making 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.”

While TikTok has often seemed like a competitor to streaming services — especially when it comes to cornering the market on music discovery — the “Add to Music App” announcement stressed that they were all happy partners in a listener’s journey.

“We want to create less work to get to the audio you love,” Sten Garmark, Spotify’s global head of consumer experience, said in a statement last year. “That means being everywhere our users are and creating seamless ways to save songs to Spotify to enjoy when and how they choose to listen.”

In February, TikTok expanded access to the Add to Music app, making it available in 163 countries.