Thursday, March 28, 2024

Report: Jay Z Buys Digital Streaming Service Available Only In Poland, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Denmark

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Reports from Bloomberg and elsewhere say Jay Z has bought Aspiro AB, a media company that has a digital music streaming service in Poland, Sweden, Germany, Norway, and Denmark.

OK, why not? It cost his holding company $56 million. That’s what he and Beyonce spend on vacations.

Aspiro has WiMP (really, a terrible name for the US) and Tidal. The latter sells and streams high end audio files which could only be appreciated fully on Sony’s excellent new Walkman A17 or Neil Young’s Pono player. The latter took quite a beating this week on Yahoo with a scathing piece by David Pogue.

Meantime, if Jay Z had wanted a library of high definition tracks, he could check out hdtracks.com, the single best service which already has a huge catalog.

But a challenger to Spotify? Not here in the U.S. Maybe WiMP and Tidal are the future for Europe. But my sense is that Spotify is entrenched at this point, with Pandora right behind.

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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