Sprint Purchases 33 Percent Stake in Tidal For $200 Million

Sprint has acquired a 33 percent stake in Jay Z's music streaming service Tidal, the two companies announced today. From a report: A source familiar with the matter tells Billboard that the purchase was for $200 million and that Jay and each of the company's two dozen artist-owners will remain part owners. As part of the deal, Tidal will become available to Sprint's 45 million retail customers, while the companies will partner for exclusives from its artists, according to a press release.

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[ClickOnThis]

YouTube won. Every song is available on YouTube, and can easily be downloaded off YouTube for personal use. Why would anyone bother with Spotify?

Better sound quality? Spotify Premium offers 320 kbps Ogg Vorbis. Youtube streams at 126 kbps AAC to 165 kbps Ogg Vorbis, depending on the AV container.

Re:It's not gonna happen

[MightyYar]

I used to listen to cassette tapes on a Walkman, so I'll take "free, way better quality than tape" over "expensive, and maybe you can hear the difference in a quiet room with expensive headphones".

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[FatAlb3rt]

I can honestly say that I've never heard 126kbps, so I'll take your word that it's crappy.

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[MightyYar]

I completely disagree. 126kbps AAC would be pretty much transparent even in good listening conditions. 126kbps MP3 would probably be pretty bad. Depending on the source and encoder, it could be as annoying to listen to as tape (but with different flaws). Tape mostly had hiss, wow/flutter, and poor dynamic range. The hiss was not usually a big deal except in fancy-pants music with quiet components... this was not a problem for my rock/pop listening. The poor dynamic range was something that my brain seemed t

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[alvinrod]

Probably because they don't want to take the effort to download and covert the songs and have to manage syncing them to a device. Sure Spotify or any other streaming service costs money, but at a certain point your time becomes more valuable to you fork over the subscription fee instead of downloading the YouTube video and stripping out the audio. It's the same reason that there are plenty of auto shops that mainly specialize in oil changes. Sure, we could all do it ourselves for a lot less money, but most

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[AvitarX]

It's music recommendations on YouTube are terrible too.

It's not much of a substitute for a streaming service.

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[AvitarX]

I'm pretty happy with Google Play music, except for the fact that tidal (I assume) is taking artists away (my selection of Jay-Z has significantly reduced).

I'd like to see competition, but not in the form of exclusivity.

I left spotify because it sucked (no streaming to chromecast, no side loading, worse recommendations, no personal "library"), I suspect they fixed many of the issues, but that's why competition is good.

Net Neutrailty

[goombah99]

Conveniently, Net Neutrality is going to die since il Cheeto appointed the man from Verizon to regulate it. SO Sprint can make their service the priory one and not use any data charges.

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[Opportunist]

Only 'cause "Annoying Orange" is already an established character.

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[Captain Splendid]

Cheeto Mussolini has always worked well for me,.

So...

[ChodaBoyUSA]

A failing cell network purchased (part of) a failing streaming company...so they can fail together?

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[AvitarX]

Sprint is going to by TMO first, then once it fails, there will be essentially no cellphone competition.

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[tim620]

Or Sprint has shitty service where you live (like they do here) and you switched back to Verizon or AT&T, because saving money wasn't worth the lack of 4G and dropped calls that Sprint provides.

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[AvitarX]

Depends where you live and travel I suppose

I have tmobile for $75/month

It is unlimited enough for me locally (they say they'll throttle me during peak hours if I break 23 GB, but I only use 10-15) with good coverage (about 2/3 the time I am faster than 15/5mbps, and rarely under 5/1). They give me the basics I need in Toronto (slow slow slow, too slow for interactive, but I can pull a map in desperation for free).

For Verizon last I checked I'd be paying $75/month more (glancing at their page, things may hav

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[tim620]

I switched to Sprint from Verizon (to save money) a few years ago. I quickly discovered they didn't have 4G coverage where I live. About a year later, I managed to get out of my Sprint contract. I now use AT&T Go (prepaid) service. I'm on their $60 plan ($55 with autopay). I get unlimited talk and text in USA, Mexico and Canada, and 8GB data, that rolls over. I rarely use over 5 GB. Plus I get 4G service almost everywhere I go and no more dropped calls. It works for me.

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[AvitarX]

Yeah, I actually think AT&T has responded to pressure from T-mobile and is pretty competitive (especially now that T-Mobile is unlimited only).

That's why I'm concerned about the proposed Sprint buyout of T-Mobile (and the AT&T one when that was on the table).

Sprint was always garbage in my area (bad coverage, high prices), but T-Mobile has been really upping their game over the last decade, and it's starting to exert downward pressure on AT&T, which is in turn starting to affect Verizon.

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[Desler]

What competition? AT&T and Verizon raise prices in lockstep and T-Mobile is too insignificant and impotent to stop it. Sprint is simply just a joke of a company.

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[tim620]

LOL. I did Sprint once. Never again. Horrible service. Still no 4G coverage in my area (in 2016). Dropped calls and even no service at times, while driving in rural areas. Unless they buy AT&T or Verizon, I'm never going back. Having phone and data service is worth the extra money.

Another bad investment

[BarbaraHudson]

This is the same Jay Z whose Tidal streaming music company is now accused of grossly inflated subscriber counts - using their own numbers. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a proviso for either refunding the majority of the "investment" in one form or another, or for clawback terms. In other words, buy it for $200 million, get rebated $175 million. Even Sprint can't be that stupid ... or can they?

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[c]

Even Sprint can't be that stupid ... or can they?

If they're trusting Tidal's subscriber numbers without even looking at their own traffic patterns to get a picture how much Tidal data (and that other streaming services) is moving across their networks, then I wouldn't put any amount of stupidity beyond them.

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[Cytotoxic]

Well, once the deal goes through, that analysis will show that 100% of Sprint users are subscribers. So their analysis is gonna look pretty good....

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[Gilgaron]

Good point... if the new administration kills Net Neutrality then they'll also probably give their subscribers usage of Tidal that doesn't count towards their cap and so on, as well.

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[c]

once the deal goes through, that analysis will show that 100% of Sprint users are subscribers

True. But I suspect the data volumes will remain close to zero...

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[wjcofkc]

Ya.... who?

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[CrashNBrn]

AliYa baHoo ba ?

Amazon will destroy Tidal and Spotify

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the simple math:

For Amazon Prime members you can now pickup a subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited for $79 per year or $6.58 per month. They have over 20 million songs and the catalog is growing by the day and will catch up to Tidal's 30 million in about a year. Tidal basic is $9.99 per month and is not lossless. Amazon has them beat by $3.41. Since the major cohort of people paying for these services is middle class males over the age of 30 employed in jobs paying over $50k per year basically the

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[CrashNBrn]

Who cares. Google Music Family for up to 6 people is $15 a month. And gives you legally ad-free YouTube Red.

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[CrashNBrn]

Amazon doesn't even let you have profiles on their streaming hardware FFS. So if you want more than one profile for streaming you at least need TWO FireSticks, and maybe even two Yearly $125 prime memberships, as all that other "extra-shit" barely works at all for the "guest-spouse" of the Prime Membership Family.

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[CrashNBrn]

Aye, but in the whole Prime Membership thing the other person|spouse is referred to as the "guest|leech" of the REAL Prime Membership holder.

Every other streaming service, except for Amazon Prime + FireStuff, lets anyone in your HOUSEHOLD have their own viewing profile.

Who Cares...

[tim620]

I tried Sprint once (to save money). I would never go back to them. They are horrible in my area. I don't care who they buy. No gimmick or other company will ever get me to use them again. (Unless they buy out AT&T).