Is the Tide running out for Jay-Z’s streaming service?

By Anthony Angelini

Hip-hop mogul Jay-Z’s streaming site seems to be lurching from one crisis to another.

With rumours that he intends to jump ship, is this the end of the TIDAL experiment?

The Blueprint

It seemed like a game-changer in January this year when rapper Jay Z bought Aspiro, the parent company of the streaming platforms WiMP and Tidal for $56m. At the time of the purchase Aspiro had 500,000 paying subscribers.

All the products were rolled into one premium music-streaming service called TIDAL.

The new company was relaunched on March 30 at a star-studded event in New York City. Jay-Z unveiled a roster of superstar musicians who were joining the site including Coldplay, Daft Punk, Jack White, Madonna, Usher, Rihanna and Beyoncé - all of whom assumed co-ownership of TIDAL.

Each artist signed their name to a declaration stating that TIDAL would be “not just a streaming service but a platform with enhanced experiences”.

TIDAL’s main selling-point was its “lossless” (higher-quality) streams. It also tried to separate itself from its competition by promising greater connectivity between listeners and their favourite artists.

The service presented itself as artist owned and artist driven, promising “music presented and heard the way the artists intended.” It trumpeted the fact that artists streaming on TIDAL would receive a greater level of royalties than they would from other streaming sites.

99 Problems

But from the outset, the omens have not been good. High-fidelity audio was only available through its $20-per-month subscription. However, the cheaper $10-per-month offered very little to enable it to stand out from its other competitors like Spotify and Soundcloud.

Also, the high memory requirements associated with “lossless” audio meant that customers could quickly find that they have reached their monthly data usage limits.

This focus on quality over quantity may please audiophiles, but does not appear to have captured the imagination of consumers – with them concerned more with download speeds and accessibility rather than audio perfection.

Interest in the online app has also been declining. A month after its launch, the app fell off the chart for the top 700 downloaded apps on US iPhone.

The service has also endured a managerial merry-go round with original CEO Andy Chen exiting in April. His replacement Peter Tonstad left the company in June. Zena Burns, TIDAL's senior vice president of label and artist relations, left last week after a mere two months with the company.

Tidal is also engaged in a $50m lawsuit with Lil’ Wayne over a mix-tape that was streamed exclusively in July.

Reasonable Doubt

The coming days and weeks may determine whether a service that started out with great fanfare finds its voice, or exits the stage with a whimper.