A year ago this week,
Jay Z unveiled Tidal, a Scandinavian music-streaming Web site initially called Aspiro that he bought for
$56 million in January 2015. At a star-studded press conference, Jay Z publicly relaunched the service, hailing it as a major competitor to Spotify and other streaming services.
Now, Page Six reports, Tidal plans to get into the movie business, too.
Page Six reports that Tidal is working with movie-industry bigwigs to create original movies for the streaming service, effectively allowing it to compete with Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu. Tidal also plans to leverage its arsenal of artists for its movies—so you could, in theory, expect to see original programming featuring
Rihanna, for example, or
Kanye West, who claims Tidal is
funding his ideas for scripted content. Movies streaming on Tidal could start as soon as June, according to Page Six. “Tidal has upset everybody in the music business, the labels, Apple and [Interscope founder]
Jimmy Iovine, and now it is taking on Netflix and Hulu,” a source told Page Six. “The movie service will feature original content as well as acquired films. Tidal hopes to work with an indie studio or producer on a partnership to create original movies.”
Irv Gotti and the Weinstein Co. have both been named as producers.
Meanwhile, Tidal owner Jay Z is about to wage a lawsuit against Tidal’s former owners. He claims that the company was overvalued based on falsely inflated subscription numbers. “The growth in our subscriber numbers has been even more phenomenal than we’ve previously shared,” Tidal
told the Verge. “It became clear after taking control of TIDAL and conducting our own audit that the total number of subscribers was actually well below the 540,000 reported to us by the prior owners. As a result, we have now served legal notice to parties involved in the sale.”
Jay Z likely feels like he overpaid for the company, since the sale price was, in part, based on subscriber numbers. According to the letter, Tidal had far fewer than the 540,000 subscribers that Tidal parent company Aspiro reported prior to Jay Z buying the company. Norwegian media company Schibsted, which was a majority stakeholder before the acquisition, refutes claims of overinflation. “We disagree with the accusations in the letter and any potential claims,” a spokesman for Schibsted
told Bloomberg. “We would like to point out that the company was listed on the stock exchange with everything that entails regarding transparent financial reporting.”
One of Tidal’s major selling points has been that it provides a platform for artists who have felt marginalized by how little money they make streaming their music online. Tidal, a majority artist-owned company that branded itself as a service by artists and for artists, said it would pay performers double the royalties they received from other streaming services. But Tidal struggled at the beginning. Its launch came just before the
debut of Apple Music, which overshadowed it. Users balked at the cost—Tidal’s subscription streaming service has two tiers, one priced at $9.99 a month and the other, promising high-fidelity sound,
cost $19.99 a month, double the price of Spotify Premium. And the service faced a number of executive shake-ups in the year since it launched, most recently
firing its C.F.O., Chris Hart, and C.O.O., Nils Juell. While it’s been rumored that Hart left as the result of a streaming-data dispute, the company said in a statement that it’s relocating its operations and accounting teams to New York.
Still, Tidal is gaining traction. A few days ago, it announced it had reached an impressive
3 million subscribers, up from 900,000 last June. By comparison, Spotify—which
just raised a $1 billion round of convertible debt this week—announced this month it has
30 million subscribers. The addition of movie streaming, too, could help draw in users who haven’t yet been sold on the service.
