The largest music streaming service in the world, YouTube, revealed that it had paid the music business more than $6 billion in royalties over the course of the previous 12 months, or around $2 billion more than it had previously claimed. Like previous year, Lyor Cohen, the platform’s head of music, makes the announcement in the form of a blog post.
Although lacking in details, the post does list some of the causes. By 2025, Cohen added, “We want our twin engine of advertising and subscriptions to be the top revenue provider to the industry.” For this reason, YouTube is monetizing music in over 100 countries across all formats (short and long form video, audio tracks, Live, etc.). Additionally, the total amount of time spent watching music content on YouTube across desktop, tablet, mobile, and TV is increasing yearly.
According to him, “We also pioneered the monetization of user generated content (UGC), which we knew could become a powerful engine for the industry: For the second year in a row, UGC drove over 30% of payouts for artists, songwriters, and rights-holders; Shorts generates 30 billion views per day, with 1.5 billion monthly logged-in users.”
Despite these significant numbers, trade associations for the music business and others have criticized YouTube’s royalties program throughout the years due to its lack of transparency and, in their opinion, inadequate payouts. Just the other day, a report in Billboard made a number of specific assertions that the YouTube rights-management system is “full of faults” and “ripe for misuse,” which were backed up by claims from a number of unnamed individuals.
There can be no disputing its effect and success, though. To demonstrate how fans can “find, consume, and participate in music across numerous content formats, and only YouTube can deliver that full experience in one location,” Cohen cited BlackPink’s most recent single, “Pink Venom,” in his blog post. “Fans followed the music video from its teaser to the Shorts challenge to its live-streamed debut and beyond. Wow, “Pink Venom” then went on to become the third-largest 24-hour music video debut of all time and the biggest 24-hour music video debut of 2022.
Building a connected music experience across all music mediums is excellent for fans, but it must also be great for artists, he wrote in his conclusion. every artist. Our goal is to assist individuals in creating their own YouTube channels and building financially secure professions, whether they want to be “always on” or only occasionally great.
The announcement precedes a significant adjustment at YouTube: After serving as a senior executive at the video giant for more than 12 years, chief business officer Robert Kyncl announced late last month that he will be departing the organization in early 2023. Kyncl, who earlier played a significant role in transitioning Netflix from DVDs to digital, assisted in building YouTube into a multibillion-dollar behemoth and had a significant impact on how the company interacted with the government.
Succeeding Kyncl in the chief business officer role effective Oct. 3 will be Mary Ellen Coe, a 10-year Google veteran who most recently has served as president of Google Customer Solutions, overseeing the internet company’s global ads business for midmarket and small businesses.