One third of Jay Z’s music streaming platform Tidal, has been acquired the leading telecommunication company Sprint. Now, Tidal will be a part of the catalog of services Sprint offers to its 45 million customers.
The news appears two years after Shawn Corey Carter, popularly known as Jay Z, declared that he was acquiring Swedish company Aspiro AB, the firm that owned Tidal, as well as Norway-based WiMP Music.
Jay Z used his links in the music industry for creating an alternative of Spotify, which would offer lossless audio and high quality video streaming services. However, it failed to receive the intended attention. The alliance with industry big names such as Kanye West provided momentary hikes to its popularity – however, it didn’t seem sufficient. Reports of Tidal’s inability of attracting subscribers have also been in the air of late.
With all this in the picture, Tidal’s partial acquisition by a big company doesn’t surprise us much.
Speaking about the buy, Marcelo Claure stated in a press release:
Jay saw not only a business need, but a cultural one, and put his heart and grit into building Tidal into a world-class music streaming platform that is unrivaled in quality and content. The passion and dedication that these artist-owners bring to fans will enable Sprint to offer new and existing customers access to exclusive content and entertainment experiences in a way no other service can.
Moreover, Sprint has made an announcement of offering “exclusive content”, which will roll out only for Sprint customers. This is to tease the Tidal customers unwilling to switch to Sprint, as the exclusive contents mostly appears to be some works from the big names of the music industry — and could induce unwilling users to make the switch.
The tie-up has declared one more initiative which is of establishing a marketing fund, specifically for artists and providing them with “flexibility to create and share their work with and for their fans,” .
And as per the deal, Claure will be a part of Tidal’s board of directors.
The American rap artist, businessman and investor Jay Z said;
Sprint shares our view of revolutionizing the creative industry to allow artists to connect directly with their fans and reach their fullest, shared potential. Marcelo understood our goal right away, and together we are excited to bring Sprint’s 45 million customers an unmatched entertainment experience.
The figures for the deal have not been revealed, however, a rumor states that the acquisition value is somewhere around $200 million.
