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Samsung denies plans to buy Tidal, but could shut down its Milk Music platform anyway

By | Published on Monday 7 March 2016

milkmusic

Samsung has denied the latest rumour that it is acquiring streaming service Tidal. “The rumour of Samsung acquiring Tidal is not true”, said a spokesperson for the consumer electronics giant.

Though note “rumour” in the singular there. And as we all know, there have been many rumours about Samsung buying Tidal since, well, pretty much ever since Jay-Z acquired the digital firm. So the “rumour” may indeed be untrue. But what about the rumour, the rumour and the rumour? Samsung will probably have itself a streaming music service by the end of the week.

Although another rumour doing the rounds just now is that Samsung actually won’t have itself a streaming music service by the end of the week. In that various sources have told Variety that the tech firm’s most recent streaming music adventure – the bizarrely named personalised radio service Milk Music – is set to be shut down.

Amongst the bits of gossip coming in from said sources are that the team working on Milk Music has already been downsized in recent months, and that Samsung bosses are disappointed that, while the freemium element of its latest play in music streams gained some traction, upsell to the paid-for version was slow.

Speculation that Samsung would shutter Milk Music as part of revamp of its music strategy may well have, in part, fuelled the latest rumours of the firm being in talks to buy Tidal, rumours which seem to circulate every time Jay-Z has a meeting with the company, even though we all know the Roc Nation chief has had various brand partnership deals in place with the firm.



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