Beyonce’s Hubby Jay Z: Tidal Loses Millions in 2015, Will It Survive?
Beyonce’s hubby, Jay Z, has not had a good year with his new music streaming service, Tidal. The company reportedly posted huge losses in 2015, amounting to almost $30 million.
Tidal charges $20 a month for premium access and $10 a month for basic membership.
Hear @Usher’s new album, #HARDIILOVE, ONLY on TIDAL! https://t.co/aQpJnQnVQL pic.twitter.com/GsHLj2uDaO
— TIDAL (@TIDAL) September 13, 2016
Tidal’s parent company, Aspiro, had a loss of $28 million last year. The losses were discovered after examining the accounts in depth, according to the Wall Street Journal. This is already following a net loss of roughly $13 million in 2014.
Aspiro, which is a Norwegian company headquartered in the Swedish town of Malmo, was not immediately available to comment on the situation to news reporters.
“In the financial statement, Aspiro said a board assessment had concluded the company lacked funding for 2016 but added, ‘The board believes the company will be able to secure new financing.'”
Jay Z bought the company through his holding group, Project Panther Bidco for $56 million in March 2015. Tidal has apparently received around 100 payment default records since the acquisition.
Coming Friday: @itsdorothysucka #DarkNightsVideo pic.twitter.com/el5BqQGhIq
— TIDAL (@TIDAL) September 14, 2016
Beyonce’s rapper husband-turned-mogul seems to have gotten himself into some financial trouble with the music streaming service last year. Tidal has around $440,000 in outstanding payments due.
Jay Z’s lawyers have reportedly accused Tidal’s former owners of overstating the number of paying customers that it had before Jay Z bought the company.
Tidal’s former owners, including the Norwegian media group Schibsted, has denied these accusations.
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Tidal had been in the news recently after it was reported that Apple was in talks about a possible purchase of the company. Tidal’s music would be an additional asset to their current streaming service, Apple Music.
Beyonce really spiked Tidal’s sales after she released her latest album, Lemonade, exclusively on Tidal. Although it was exclusive for just 24 hours before becoming available on other music platforms, the album still had a major impact on Tidal’s subscription numbers.
Tidal reportedly gained more than one million new subscribers when Beyonce’s Lemonade was released. Jay Z better thank his wife, because, without the subscribers from Lemonade, Tidal would have been in an even deeper hole.
Along with the album, a Lemonade film was also released and broadcast on HBO.
Some other peaks in Tidal’s subscription numbers came from other exclusives like Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo and the Yeezy Season 3 fashion launch.
Jay Z relaunched Tidal last year and had a mixed reception. According to Billboard, about 1.35 million (45 percent) had signed up for the company’s premium service. The remaining customers had the standard $9.99 subscription.
Official figures have yet to be updated for this year, but with Beyonce’s Lemonade supplying an additional 1.2 million subscribers, an estimated 4.2 million people are currently signed up with Tidal.
However, those numbers do not compare to other music streaming services like Spotify, which has around 30 million subscribers, and Apple Music, which has around 11 million paying customers.
Although it was also reported that Spotify suffered a net loss in 2015 as well, they are expanding much faster than Tidal, and their revenue has nearly doubled.
With Tidal still behind the two market leaders for music streaming, will it survive much longer? At this rate, some analysts believe that Tidal isn’t growing at the speed it requires to keep up with competitors.
One thing that Tidal does have is the high-fidelity quality that is not offered by other competitors and Tidal’s artist exclusives.
Will Tidal merge with Apple Music in order to survive, or will Jay Z continue to try to make Tidal a main competitor among the music streaming services?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7uBph38kXo
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