Jay Z’s streaming services merge

As Jay Z’s $56.2 million bid for Swedish streaming company Aspiro is finalised, the company’s two small streaming brands WiMP and Tidal have merged.

Aspiro's Tidal service, which operates in the US, Canada and the UK, and its WiMP music service in Norway, Sweden and other parts of Europe, now both operate under the Tidal name.

The news follows Nasdaq OMX Nordic Exchange’s approval for Aspiro to delist its shares. The last day of trading of Aspiro’s shares will be April 2.

According to Aspiro’s fourth quarter report, it has made more than 30 partnership and integration deals with audio brands, including Sonos. The wireless HiFi audio manufacturer is closely tied with Singapore-based streaming service Deezer and has rolled out its Deezer Elite premium service globally and made it exclusively available to Sonos users.

Tidallooks to challenge streaming’s major players through exclusive content and the uptake of high-fidelity digital audio – Tidal offers lossless, 16 bitFLACstreaming. The announcement states the new-look Tidal is:"a single destination for artists and fans toshare ideas, exclusive content, songs, videos, studio sessions, rough tracks, personal conversations and more."

Itis expanding to 22 new countries this quarter and has plans to take in 30 countries in total.

Although Australia gets an initial snub, Tidal will be expanding to Austria, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, South Africa, and Turkey. Its full US launch is March 30.

When Jay Z’s bid is finalised, he will own 95.18% of Aspiro’s shares.

Tidal boasts25 million music tracks,75,000 music videos, curated editorial from music journalists and industry experts and dedicated apps for iOS and Android phones and tablets.