News - 20/04/2015

TIDAL cleans house as CEO and another 25 employees are let go, partners with Soundiiz

TIDAL cleans house as CEO and another 25 employees are let go, partners with Soundiiz

It has been little over a month since Jay-Z’s company took over TIDAL, and a lot has happened since. The service has re-launched with high-profile endorsements, it has already hosted a number of exclusives from the likes of Rihanna and Beyonce, and now it has also fired its CEO. 

The company confirmed that that Andy Chen, the chief executive of TIDAL’s parent company Aspiro has been replaced by Peter Tonstad, who according to a statement released on friday has "better understanding of the industry". This sudden change in leadership on seems like an odd move since Chen is generally a well-liked and respected figure in the music industry, but obviously we are not privy to what has been happening in the background, potential scenarios include him being opposed to the takeover bid to begin with, disagreements around the timeline of the relaunch or quite simply a clash of personalities between Chen and Jay-Z.

In addition, further reports state that the company has cut up to 25 positions already. Sure enough, this may have been necessary to streamline the company’s finances but this kind of bloodbath just a few weeks into the new ownership will could deal a fatal blow in confidence towards the new owners from existing staff which is problematic since - let’s face it - Alicia Keys is unlikely to learn how to code anytime soon and Daft Punk’s helmets could prove to be a communications issue around the office. On the other hand, since most of TIDAL's operations were based in Europe, the move could signal an interest in increasing the size of the US office.

TIDAL also generated some headlines over the weekend due to its partnership with the company Soundiiz, a startup that wants to make it easy to export your playlists from one streaming service and import them into another. One of the big barriers to users changing streaming service is the fact that having created their entire libraries and playlists within a walled garden they don’t want to leave it all behind and start from scratch. This is a real issue in the industry and it’s good to see startups making strides in that regard, although Soundiiz’s technology could work just as well for WiMP and TIDAL users who are not satisfied with the service and want to move to Spotify, Deezer or Rdio. 

(Andrea Leonelli)

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