Jay Z Suing Original Tidal Owners For Inflating Subscriber Numbers
Jay Z might’ve paid too much money for Tidal. Jay’s streaming service just hit the one-year anniversary of its relaunch this week, and now Bloomberg reports that Jay has sent a letter to Schibsted ASA, the Norwegian media company behind Tidal’s previous owners Aspiro AB, accusing them of inflating the service’s subscriber numbers.
When Jay bought Tidal in a $56 million deal last year, Schibsted reported that the service had 540,000 subscribers. But now, in a statement, Tidal claims that the number was really “well below” that and that they’ve “served legal notice” to the previous owners.
In a statement, Schibsted spokesman Anders Rikter says, “We disagree with the accusations in the letter and any potential claims. We would like to point out that the company was listed on the stock exchange with everything that entails regarding transparent financial reporting.”
Tidal now claims more than three million paying subscribers. Tidal also claims that Kanye West’s formerly Tidal-exclusive album The Life Of Pablo was streamed 250 million times in its first 10 days of release on the service, and almost nobody believes those numbers.
Maybe Jay will have more luck in the movie business.