Tidal loses third CEO in two years

Just as Jay Z’s Tidal streaming service starts to settle down following mobile phone service operator Sprint’s $200 million cash injection, another key executive has been ousted. 

CEO Jeff Toig has left the building after a year in the job. He is the third CEO for the company in two years.

Toig took over in early 2016 after helping to set up Virgin Mobile USA and then creating Cricket Wireless’s exclusive music service, Muve.

He spent two years at SoundCloud as Chief Business Officer before Jay-Z brought him over to replace interim CEO Peter Tonstad. The latter was filling in after Andy Chen was moved out.

At the time Jay-Z hailed Toig as a "leader at the intersection of consumer ­technology and entertainment for more than two decades."

There is speculation Toig actually exited quietly in March. But it’s only now that a statement has come out of Tidal: “As part of Tidal’s continued expansion this year we will be announcing a new CEO in the coming weeks. We wish former CEO, Jeffrey Toig, all the best in his future endeavours.” 

When Jay-Z bought Swedish ­technology company Aspiro and its WiMP ­streaming service for $58 million and relaunched it as Tidal in early 2015 with an impressive A-list of co-owners, the implication was a run of superstar exclusives to bring in paying customers.

But Tidal has had a series of PR disasters – including disputed streaming figures which saw the exit of its COO and CFO, and technological snafus.

It has only managed to sign up 3 million subscribers (so it claims –others say 1 million, based on its streaming royalty payments) while Spotify has hit 50 million and Apple Music 20 million.

Jay-Z is determined to keep Tidal moving. Aside from the Sprint tie-up, he’s also brought into the service’s content team former Billboard editor Tony Gervino and one-time XXL Magazine editor Elliott Wilson.