Tidal, Jay Z's struggling streaming music service, has fired two more top executives. The move comes as rumors swirl about a possible acquisition by smartphone maker Samsung, and controversy plagues two recent high-profile exclusive releases by pop stars Kanye West and Rihanna.
The two executives, the company's COO Nils Juell (Chief Operating Officer) and CFO Chris Hart (Chief Financial Officer) were let go through an ever-revolving door at the company that has seen various executives leave or get let go during Jay Z's short time span at the helm. First, CEO Andy Chen was fired, and then, after only three months, his replacement CEO, Peter Tonstad, resigned. Vania Schlogel, the CIO who had acted as the public face of the company since its launch last March, resigned in November. Former SoundCloud exec Jeff Toig was hired as CEO in December, the third person to assume the position in an eight-month period.
While Toig remains with the company, Juell and Hart are now gone. Tidal released a statement attempting to chalk up the move to consolidation of its office locations.
"Tidal has terminated CFO Chris Hart and COO Nils Juell," the company said. "As Tidal has grown into a global operation serving 46 countries we have moved our accounting and operations team to New York while our technology team and key support staff remain in Oslo."
The truth of the matter may be different however, as the news was originally reported by the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv and Swedish website Breakit, which cited a disagreement as to the reporting methodology for sharing streaming data as the reason for Hart's dismissal.
The news comes just as Tidal has been making some progress in regard to subscriber count on the heels of its exclusive launch of Kanye West's The Life of Pablo album as well as Rihanna's new Anti disc. Neither release has been terribly smooth, though. The company accidentally leaked Rihanna's collection early, and controversy has ensued regarding the Kanye disc not appearing anywhere on the Billboard charts due to Tidal's refusal to report its streaming information to Nielsen. Meanwhile, rumors continue to surface that Samsung is in talks to buy the company.
