Tidal’s days in the streaming music market may be numbered. The company is reportedly hemorrhaging money and has enough cash left to stay afloat for only six more months.
The company’s financial problems are no doubt disturbing to Sprint after the cell service provider invested $200 million at the beginning of the year. Sprint was trying to better compete by offering streaming music to its subscribers, complete with exclusive content.
Tidal’s current predicament comes as a surprise to at least some people. Juan Perez, Tidal co-founder Jay Z’s business partner, told Dagens Næringsliv the company should’ve had “sufficient working capital for the next 12 to 18 months” following Sprint’s investment.
When Tidal launched it promised higher quality audio streams and better payouts for artists. The company offered exclusive content from some artists, including Prince, as a way to draw in more subscribers.
Some of its exclusive deals fell apart over time most notably with Prince’s estate pushing into other streaming services after his death, and Kanye West terminating his exclusive contract over payment disputes. Even Jay-Z offers his music on other services again after temporarily going Tidal-exclusive for a short time earlier this year.
Tidal had been pushing to be a serious competitor to Spotify, Amazon Prime Music, and Apple Music. The company hasn’t, however, managed to gain the traction it needed to seriously compete.
[Thanks to Engadget for the heads up]