Jay Z’s Tidal Music Streaming Service Inflates Subscriber Numbers According To Report
Suffice to say, Jay Z’s vision for music streaming service Tidal hasn’t quite gone according to plan. After acquiring the company in 2015, which was purchased by the hip-hop mogul for $56 million, the service still trails industry leader Spotify by tens of millions.
And recently, a report from Norwegian business paper Dagens Naeringsliv suggests that Tidal is fairing even worse, alleging that the company has been inflating its subscriber totals. Following a review of Tidal’s documents, the Oslo-based paper reported that Jay Z’s streaming service had 1.2 million activated accounts along with 850,000 paying subscribers in 2016.
In March, the company claimed that it had 3 million subscribers. Similar misleading numbers were claimed in September 2015, when Jay Z tweeted, “’Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists’ Tidal is platinum. 1,000,000 people and counting. Let’s celebrate 10/20 Brooklyn.” According to Dagens Naeringsliv, the company had only 350,000 at the time.
"Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists" Tidal is platinum. 1,000,000 people and counting. Let's celebrate 10/20 Brooklyn.
— Mr. Carter (@S_C_) September 29, 2015
As noted by Variety, Tidal had publicly admitted to having issues with its user counts in the past, saying that the company’s previous owners misrepresented the numbers during Jay Z’s acquisition process in early 2015. Tidal also said that it had “served legal notice to parties involved in the sale.” Dagens Naeringsliv reports that there was never a suit filed against the company’s previous owners.
A Forbes report points out that according to the Norwegian business paper, Tidal’s user numbers were not only exaggerated but deliberately misreported. According to Dagens Naeringsliv, Tidal’s internal count increased by 170,000 overnight in October 2015. The surge pushed the supposed total past the 1 million mark, which curiously occurred following Jay Z’s tweet that his music streaming service had gone “platinum.”
As of this writing, Jay Z and Tidal representatives have yet to comment on the report. “They don’t communicate,” Kjetil Saeter, the story’s co-author, told Forbes. “They don’t answer questions.”
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