Tidal streaming music service posts huge losses

Tidal's high-fidelity music streaming isn't making strides against the industry titans Apple Music and Spotify

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Tidal, musican Jay-Z’s CD-quality streaming music service, doubled its net losses in 2015 according to the Wall Street Journal. The net loss amounted to 239 million Swedish kronor ($28 million) in 2015. In 2014, the service posted a net loss of 88.9 million Swedish kronor.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that revenue rose 30% to 402 million Swedish kronor from 309 million kronor.

Tidal burst on to the scene as a streaming service whose primary focus was high-quality music streams in contrast to the highly compressed offerings of its competition.

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As of June, Tidal said it had 4.2 million paying subscribers. Even though Tidal has promised higher quality and even some exclusive content, it has had a hard time keeping pace with industry titans, AppleMusic and Spotify. By contrast, Apple Music boasts 17 million paying subscribers, and Spotify has 30 million paying subscribers.

[related: best audiophile download sites]

Tidal charges $20 per month for high-quality versions of its 40 million-song catalog and $10 a month for lower-quality streams.  The audiophile community, that Jay-Z’s streaming service might seem to cater to, hasn’t necessarily shown a penchant for streaming services. Instead, a number of audiophile-focused download stores have arisen online, none of which offer a streaming option.

5 COMMENTS

  1. I liked the Tidal Hi-fi service but didn’t use it enough to pay the $32/month it costs here with tax in Canada. Here’s a genius idea….lower it down below $20/month and myself and probably millions of others will join. Don’t be greedy for a change.

  2. Two things, from a cheap audiophile:

    1. Mr. Sherwood, I’m also in Canada and my bill (from PayPal) says “$19.99 CDN” each month… Where are you coming up with $32? There could be some discrepancy somewhere??

    2. The $20 I spend each month on Tidal is so much less than the (at least) $30 or so that I spend on bargain/used CDs that I barely listen to anyways. AND having Tidal means I can stream all of that “Def Leopard’s Greatest Hits” crap losslessly from my NAIM UnitiQute, not to mention the hours of lower-res listening in my car, my pocket, while grocery shopping, etc.

    I think TIDAL is an absolute audiophile bargain and a must-have.

    My 2¢ 🙂

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