How much worse could things get for Jay Z’s Tidal music streaming service? We may be about to find out. Bloomberg’s insider sources say that both Sony and Warner have been asking Tidal for huge advances in exchange for the rights to stream their artists’ catalogs. While Tidal has apparently come to an agreement with Warner, it seems the Sony deal isn’t done yet — and if Tidal can’t find the cash to pay its requested royalties, it could lose the music of Beyoncé, who just happens to be one of Tidal’s flagship artists along with being Jay Z’s wife.
DON’T MISS: The funniest and most brutal takedown of Jay Z’s Tidal we’ve heard yet
This is just one of the tidbits Bloomberg dug up on Tidal in its big feature. Among the other gems:
- Tidal was apparently counting on a cash infusion from Sprint to help it pay Sony and Warner’s massive royalty requests but Sprint has specifically said that it has not made a financial investment in Tidal.
- While Tidal says it has 900,000 users, analysts who spoke with Bloomberg “suspect many have signed up for trials and will cancel when they have to start paying.”
The piece concludes by saying it’s still too soon to write off Tidal, but with Spotify and Pandora still going strong and with Apple’s new music streaming service on the horizon, things aren’t exactly looking great right now. The whole piece is worth reading and can be found here.
