Tidal Might Be Inflating Its Subscriber Numbers

Tidal has been accused of inflating their subscriber numbers to the public. The streaming service has allegedly been inflating their numbers ever since it was purchased by Jay Z two years ago, according to a report by Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv.

Dagens Næringsli was able to obtain internal reports from Tidal that showed the company only had 350,000 subscribers in September 2015. That was the same month in which Jay Z claimed the streaming service had reached one million subscribers.

The report also alleges that Tidal falsified its numbers as recently as March 2016. The streaming service claimed to have reached 3 million subscribers at that time, but admitted to only having 1.2 million activated accounts and 850,000 subscribers in its monthly report to record labels.

The allegations are particularly damning since Jay Z and his team already accused Tidal’s previous owners of inflating subscriber numbers. Jay Z filed a lawsuit against the former owners in which he said he was misled about their numbers. Hov’s team was told the streaming service had 503,000 worldwide subscribers, a figure his lawsuit says was misleading.

Dagens Næringsli reports that the lawsuit never materialized. Tidal’s most recent report to music labels, which was issued in October, said they had 1.1 million paying subscribers.

Tidal has dealt with its fair share of adversity as it already reported $28 million in losses in 2015. Tidal’s parent company Aspiro also struggled to make payments on time in 2015, owing $438,000 in outstanding bills.

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