If you have Sprint, you'll soon be able to listen to music through Tidal
If you have Sprint and you like music, we've got some good news for you.
The cellphone service provider announced Monday it has bought a 33 percent stake in Jay Z's music streaming service Tidal in a "game-changing partnership." This means the 45 million people who have Sprint will have access to the exclusive music on Tidal, including music that's not available for other Tidal subscribers.
"Sprint shares our view of revolutionizing the creative industry to allow artists to connect directly with their fans and reach their fullest, shared potential," Jay Z said in a statement.
Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure will join the Tidal board of directors, but the companies say Tidal's artist-owners will still run the service to maintain the artist-fan connection it's known for.
"Jay saw not only a business need, but a cultural one, and put his heart and grit into building Tidal into a world-class music streaming platform that is unrivaled in quality and content," Claure said in a statement. "The passion and dedication that these artist-owners bring to fans will enable Sprint to offer new and existing customers access to exclusive content and entertainment experiences in a way no other service can."
Tidal has more then 42.5 million songs and 140,000 high-quality videos, but it struggles to compete with bigger streaming companies like Apple, Music, Spotify and Pandora, the New York Times says, noting this could be an "important lifeline" for the streaming service.
Details on when Sprint customers will be able to access Tidal haven't been released, but they will come soon, Claure tweeted.
