Jay Z’s TIDAL streaming and entertainment service has gone into partnership with telecommunications giant Sprint, which is expected to usher in a new level of exclusive content for the company’s customers. Sprint acquired a 33 percent stake in the company, with the Brooklyn mogul and his fellow artist-owners retaining their leadership posts.
The move was announced Monday via a joint press release from TIDAL and Sprint. The deal is major in the sense that Sprint’s 45 million retail customers will now gain access to exclusive content that will be made available to current and new signees to Sprint’s service. The move also made way for Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure to join TIDAL’s Board of Directors.
“Sprint shares our view of revolutionizing the creative industry to allow artists to connect directly with their fans and reach their fullest, shared potential,” said Jay Z via the statement. “Marcelo understood our goal right away and together we are excited to bring Sprint’s 45 million customers an unmatched entertainment experience.”
The service boasts of being available in 52 nations and hosting 42.5 million songs in its vast library. TIDAL also hosts around 140,000 videos as well.
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TIDAL made headlines recently after a Norwegian publication’s report alleged that the company had been inflating its number of subscribers.
Last March, TIDAL posted that it had around three million paid subscribers, but the Norwegian investigation says internal documents showed only 1.2 million activated accounts and 850,000 subscribers.
That puts it far behind subscription king Spotify and Apple Music, which have 40 million and 17 million subscribers respectively, according to recent reports.
The details of the Sprint deal haven’t been outlined yet, but it could put the user level of the service at or near the top if numbers shake out as projected.
