TIDAL Fires Key Executives

As TIDAL continues to make headway in the streaming music world, the company is undergoing changes at the top. In Dec., the service hired former SoundCloud and Muve Music executive Jeff Toig as its third CEO in less than a year. Today (March 1), TIDAL fired Chief Financial Officer Chris Hart and Chief Operating Officer Nils Juell.

"TIDAL has terminated CFO Chris Hart and COO Nils Juell," the company said in a statement. "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 firings come on the heels of yesterday's (Feb. 29) news that TIDAL was being sued for $5 million by The American Dollar band for unpaid royalties. TIDAL sent a statement claiming that they have already paid out royalties to the band and The American Dollar are "misinformed as to who, if anyone, owes royalty payments to them."

While things look tumultuous behind the scenes, more and more superstar artists are aligning with the brand as the music world continues to shift from traditional sales to digital and streaming monetization. On Feb. 22, T.I. announced that he signed a partnership deal with TIDAL for his next album, Dime Trap. Along with the TIDAL deal, the "Money Talk" rapper also announced that he signed a distribution deal with Jay Z's Roc Nation.

Rihanna's ANTI album was released via TIDAL on Jan. 27. However, the streaming service botched the exclusive release by putting it on the site early and only kept it live for 20 minutes before it was taken down. Later that night, ANTI was officially released on TIDAL.

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