Square CEO Jack Dorsey reportedly met with Jay-Z about a potential deal in which Square would acquire the Tidal music streaming service.
Music streaming service Tidal may soon have a change of ownership, with it sounding like Twitter founder and Square CEO Jack Dorsey is interested in a purchase. The potential sale of Tidal is still very much a matter of speculation. If there's someone who could stand a chance at saving the allegedly struggling service, Dorsey would be on the shortlist.
Tidal, which launched in 2014 and was purchased by Jay-Z in 2015, markets itself as a high-quality music service that delivers lossless audio to its subscribers. Square, meanwhile, was founded by Dorsey in 2009 and allows users to make and receive mobile payments. It may seem like an unlikely pairing but recent reports suggest a deal may be closer than some think.
Bloomberg has reported that Dorsey and Jay-Z met to discuss the possibility of Square buying Tidal but that neither company responded to requests for comment to the publication. Dorsey has reportedly been photographed with Jay-Z and his wife Beyoncé multiple times over the past few months. That, coupled with the belief that Dorsey wants to build Square into a more diverse company that has ties to several different areas, fuels the theories that a sale of Tidal may be imminent.
It's tough to say whether new ownership could turn things around with Tidal, which has faced tough (and oftentimes cheaper) competition from other music streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music. Content exclusive to Tidal, like Jay-Z's own music, hasn't been enough over the years to convince more users to switch to the platform. And neither has its lengthy catalog of CD-quality music that users have been able to choose from.
That being said, there is quite a bit to work with, including that high-quality audio. Most other streaming services can't match the level of quality that Tidal offers, with Spotify's 320kbps maximum streaming quality not on par with Tidal's master quality audio files that top out at 96 kHz/24bit FLAC or WAV files. If new ownership can create a more enticing package around the high-quality audio that Tidal is known for, the service may be able to not just survive but compete effectively against the heavy hitters of music streaming.
Dorsey projects to be exactly the kind of CEO that could bring about those kinds of changes. After all, he is the visionary behind one of the most popular social media platforms in the world as well as a wildly successful payment service. It definitely wouldn't be easy turning things around with Tidal, but it sure seems like things can't get much worse for the streaming service. A new home under the Square umbrella might be just what it needs to rebound in the future.
Source: Bloomberg
