Tidal, the music streaming service Jay Z launched, has been fighting bad press from the second it started. Now, it’s losing another CEO, with interim CEO Peter Tonstad leaving just three months into his tenure.
“We are thankful to Peter for stepping in as interim CEO and wish him the best for the future,” Tidal head of communications Jana Fleischman told Forbes. “Tidal will be transitioning to a permanent CEO as part of our strategic plan to create a leading platform, and current executives in New York and Oslo will continue to lead our rapidly developing innovation and content initiatives until our new CEO is in place.”
Tonstad lead Apsiro, Tidal’s parent company, when Jay Z bought it earlier this year. Andy Chen was the first CEO of Tidal, but when Chen left, Tonstad came in as interim chief executive.
Tidal launched in March with a star-studded announcement event in New York that included appearances by Beyonce, Madonna, Daft Punk, Rihanna, Usher, Jack White and Alicia Keys. But the event was quickly criticized, since it appeared that it was just established millionaires asking for even more money. Jay Z even tried to change the public perception of the site with a series of #TidalFacts tweets, but that didn’t help much.
The rapper claimed that Tidal has 770,000 subscribers. That’s nothing to boast about when Spotify now has over 20 million paying subscribers. Competition will get even tougher once Apple Music launches.
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