Samsung not buying Tidal, closing Milk Music?

The rumour that South Korea’s electronics giant Samsung is in talks to buy Jay-Z’s Tidalmusic service has been officially denied. The story began when several sources alerted the New York Post a month ago that talks had begun.

But Samsung has now told Variety, “The rumour of Samsung acquiring Tidal is not true.”

But this does not rule out that Tidal could still go to a new home. Spotify and Google are interested in acquiring the company which relaunched 16-months ago but said to be needing a new parent after technology, royalties and alleged financial problems.

It would have made sense for Samsung, which has failed to find a successful music strategy despite numerous attempts.

In fact speculation over the weekend is that Samsung is closing down its two-year old Milk Music service, which it has ploughed a lot of money into. The problem is that its free service is popular but very few are willing to pay for its $3.99 premium tier. Last November, Samsung shuttered its accompanying Milk Video service, just before it introduced sports content on the platform.

It is expected that Samsung will officially announce a major development for Milk Music but it is not known when. But obviously Tidal is not part of the strategy.

It is doubtful that Samsung will leave the music streaming space. Not when 317 billion songs were streamed worldwide last year, up 92% from the 164 billion in 2014.