Tidal is looking to partner with another streaming site to help it make money
Music Business Worldwide reports that Tidal was in talks with Rhapsody earlier this year, but no deal was reached.
Tidal is now looking to partner with other services to try and attract new subscribers. A failure to strike a deal with Rhapsody could mean that Tidal partners with European music streaming companies like Rdio or Deezer.
We don't know exactly what a partnership between Tidal and another streaming service could look like, but it would likely be focused on sharing users and revenue between services, and possibly allowing some of Tidal's exclusive music onto its partner's site.
Jay Z tweeted in April that Tidal had 770,000 paying subscribers. That's an impressive figure, but it doesn't reflect the fact that at least 500,000 of those subscribers came from parent company Aspiro's WIMP music service, and many more originate from deals with telecoms companies. Put simply, there's no way of knowing whether Tidal has managed to draw in the numbers of subscribers that it needs.
Another looming crisis for Tidal is its failure to secure a licensing deal with Sony. Bloomberg published a lengthy report on Tidal, and points out that Sony Music could pull its artists from Tidal because it hasn't reached a deal with the service.
We reached out to Tidal and Rhapsody for comment on this article and will update when we hear back.