There may be rumors, but that’s just what they are: rumors.
Apple said it doesn’t have interest in purchasing any streaming services — at least not Tidal — despite rumors that were rumbling. In fact, Apple ended conversations about buying Tidal, founded by Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter’s in 2014.
Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was interested in a purchase. More recently, BuzzFeed News reported that Apple isn’t buying the subscription-based music streaming service, which has more than 25 million tracks and 85,000 music videos.
Somewhere in the middle, not-quite-shy Kanye West tweeted: “Apple give Jay his check for Tidal now and stop trying to act like you Steve [Jobs].” There are a few similar tweets with specific choice words, but ultimately, the rumors were waving to shore.
Now that any and all deals seem to be off, analysts are calling this a dial switch far from what had been speculated.
The original plan for Tidal was to help those recording artists who felt like they got a raw deal when music streaming options, such as Spotify, showed up. These artists were big deals, too. Jay-Z, along with Beyoncé, Rihanna, DJ Calvin Harris and Madonna — all were in on the Tidal idea.
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The reason the deal may be off is losses. The Swedish-based holding company that controls the reins on Tidal, Aspiro, had a loss of $28 million last year, which is close to three times the losses it endured in 2014.
We all know Jay-Z and Beyoncé will be just fine, but as for Tidal, we’ll just have to wave — errrr — wait and see.
