Music videos are big business on YouTube. Which is why they are being moved off the site and onto their own dedicated site in the very near future.
Can Vevo be monetized successfully enough to please both YouTube and the major record labels? And will the viewers willingly move over with the music videos?
Online Music Videos
Music videos make up a large percentage of the most viewed videos on YouTube and other online video sites. Along with movie trailers and the very best viral videos, music videos are the biggest hitters by far, as Visible Measures’ viral video chart consistently shows.
This makes the decision to move music videos off YouTube and to their own domain both justified and a strange one. While Vevo has the opportunity to become a premium portal for music videos of all kinds, it’s going to leave a gaping hole on YouTube.
Vevo Forever
Vevo was first rumored in March, with unnamed sources claiming a YouTube spin-off for music videos was on its way. April saw the site officially announced as a joint venture between YouTube and Universal Music. It was then described as Hulu for music videos and that moniker has since stuck, accurate or not.
By May, progress had already been made on the venture, with Vevo naming Rio Caraeff as CEO. And now comes a further progress report, and with it, more questions being asked as to whether Vevo can actually succeed or not.
Progress Report
has compiled a progress report on where Vevo is now. Sony Music Entertainment is now on board and Warner Music Group is in talks to also join. Big news considering it was only a year ago that WMG removed all its videos from YouTube in a huff over new licensing terms.
Whoever is involved, Vevo is planning a December launch. And it’s looking at ad rates of between $20 and $40 per thousand page views. Which is a much larger CPM than can currently be commanded on YouTube. Which is why all parties are so keen to forge ahead with the venture.
Conclusions
is going to experience a major hit to its viewing figures come December. And it will undoubtedly take time for page views on Vevo to match those on YouTube for music videos, purely because YouTube is so well-known and so prevalent on the Web.
However, when the inevitable transitional period ends, everyone looks set to gain from Vevo. YouTube will be making more revenue from the music videos, the major record labels have another string to their increasingly important digital revenue streams, and viewers will have a new MTV for the YouTube generation. Fingers crossed.
