In what was seen by many in the music industry as a high-priced experiment in music streaming exclusivity, Jay-Z’s Tidal service may not be on the most stable of financial ground.
According to multiple reports from Norway’s Dagens Næringsliv newspaper and Engadget, Tidal has been bleeding money and users for a prolonged period and now supposedly face the very real possibility of their cash pool drying up in six months’ time.
The company lost a whopping $44 million before taxes in 2016, severely depleting their fund reserve that there’s now worry that Tidal might now make it out of 2018. This news also comes after Sprint bought a 33 percent stake in the service earlier this year for a reported $200 million. All this being said, sources from inside the company maintain that whispers of a financial implosion are just that: whispers.
“We have experienced negative stories about Tidal since its inception and we have done nothing but grow the business each year,” a spokesperson for Tidal told Engadget. What’s more, the company believes that it has the momentum to become profitable by the middle of next year. However, the Norwegian newspaper that initially reported this story has also previously questioned Tidal’s subscriber numbers following claims by the service that they had hit 1 million total. After the fact, Dagens Næringsliv stated the number was, in reality, closer to 350,000.
At this point, it’s tough to say where Tidal will go from here in terms of profitability or even financial viability.
