Labels Considering Removing Artist Videos From YouTube

In a dispute that's reminiscent of what happened with MTV in the 1980s, the 3 major labels are considering removing videos of their most prominent artists from YouTube, according to various reports.

Out of all streaming sources, YouTube pays the lowest royalty rate and the labels are looking for what they consider a more fair split (it's currently 55% labels/45% YouTube).

The platform has long been a source of frustration for the majors, since YouTube has a firm grip on the ad policy, sales channel and monetization and the labels have very little say.

Perhaps throwing fuel on the fire, YouTube recently announced that the number of advertisers increased by 40% last year, with the average spend up more than 100% over a year ago. What's more, YouTube's revenue was over $6.6 billion last year, but the music industry only saw about $150 million of that, according to the RIAA. YouTube disputes that figure and states that it's really "in the billions," although no hard figures are given.

While the majors are quietly increasing their support of other platforms like Vessel and Snapchat, they're being careful about removing support from YouTube just yet. The platform is still where most people consume music (especially new music), and it still provides a significant source of income.

Plus, with YouTube's Music Key subscription service around the corner, that income could possibly increase even more, although most top level label execs are skeptical.

However it shakes out, this bears watching.

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How The Music Industry Created Its Own Worst Nightmares

Once a sector committed to the bleeding edge, the recorded music business has gone from an industry adept at incorporating the latest technology into its products to one that’s become its own worst enemy by its refusal to adopt and adapt until its too late. Over the last 30 years, not only has the industry made a series of grim mistakes that has emboldened its competition, in some cases it has even created it.

For the better part of a hundred years the recorded music business had an impressive track record of staying on top of the freshest technology. From adopting the vinyl record to replace the fragile shellac discs that were its original core business, to welcoming the cassette and its new-found portability, to the random access and digital sound of the CD, the industry managed to rise to greater and greater sales heights with each successive tech breakthrough that it incorporated. 

But a series of short-sighted mistakes starting in 1981 have turned the industry from the master of its own domain to one that’s now primarily reactionary, with each latest response putting it deeper and deeper in a hole as it loses control of its own destiny. Where once the industry controlled every aspect of its business, now it has ceded control of virtually all of it, but especially the distribution of its products.

This has occurred due to many factors, but historians will look back at three major turning points that altered the industry’s fate. 

The Rise Of MTV

Up until 1980, recorded music was an ecosystem totally run by the major record labels. They were responsible for creating the product by finding and recording the artists, to manufacturing the product in its own manufacturing plants, to distributing the product to a series of retail stores, to promoting the product via print media and especially radio. The record label was at the center of each of these activities, none of which could progress without its approval. The money flowed and life was good.

But by 1980 the industry was in a major doldrum thanks to a backlash against the disco era and a general spending malaise. Luckily it was soon bailed out by new musical trends (punk and new wave), and an upstart cable television network called MTV.

Suddenly there was a new way to promote music and every label jumped in feet first as viewers and record buyers couldn’t get enough of watching videos by the artists they loved. Soon, a new stable of MTV-ready stars was created, the CD was introduced, and music consumers were buying more product than ever before, with MTV at the center of it all. Read more on Forbes.

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What Younger Fans Want

MTV recently asked Millennials (those born between 1980 to 2000 and sometimes known as "Generation Y") just what they expected from their favorite musical artists. The results are decidedly different that what you'd get from other generations.

• They think music should be free, but they might buy it as a gesture of support.

• They really want an inside look at things. Nothing is too personal or mundane.

• They really want to be engaged. The more they're asked to be involved in creation or branding, the better.

• They crave interaction. Using multiple platforms to do so is okay.

• Shuffle-mode is just fine. They're really into musical diversity.

• There's no such thing as selling out. Blatant commercialism by an artist is almost expected.

We live in a new world where the concepts of old no longer apply. Anyone who doesn't evolve will be left behind because the music world, and music consumption, changes with new consumers. All you need to do is ask them.

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Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Diddy Attempts To Revive MTV Model In A World That's Moved Past It

Rapper/entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs is set to launch a new cable music channel in December called Revolt TV, which will be available on both the Comcast and Time-Warner networks. According to various interviews, Diddy’s vision for Revolt is that it look more like MTV used to (playing music videos and being music-centric) rather than what it’s now become (a lifestyle channel based around reality programs). Indeed there may be a hole in the market for it, since Fuse now seems to be the only music network dedicated to current music. Still, some might wonder if a network based on early MTV can be successful in our current Music 3.0 world.

Many within the industry would like the answer to be yes, since the music business rose to its greatest financial peak during the years that MTV played videos and had programs built around them. Read the entire article on Forbes.

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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It's Time For The YouTube Music Awards

There's been much hoopla over this year's Video Music Awards (VMA's), with everything about who won, who didn't win, the fights, the pouting, and finally, the low ratings. The fact of the matter is that the VMA's have long been obsolete, but sadly out of touch as well.

MTV, who sponsors the VMAs, is now a lifestyle channel and rarely plays videos any more. How can it have any award credibility if it's not in the game. That's assuming, of course, that it had any in the first place.

But here's the most damning indictment; some of the biggest videos that have been nominated in this past year (Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" and Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe") have been a product of viral videos on YouTube. In fact, many studies point to the fact that YouTube is one of the main avenues of discovery for new music. When was the last time MTV could claim that? 1989?

That's why it's time for an music video awards show that's far more relevant to what's happening today - the YouTube Music Awards. Google, who owns YouTube, is already building broadcast facilities and gradually dipping their toe into television, and this would be the perfect way to start it off.

Just image how they could tie it all together. Do a live stream on YouTube Live and GoogleTV in conjunction with a TV network, and tie in the social with a massive Google+ Hangout. In fact, I volunteer my services as exec producer, if you're listening Google, because the YouTube Music Awards is an idea who's time has come.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

MTV Gets Back Into Music

Believe it or not, MTV used to be strictly a music channel and had a huge influence on the charts and music in general during the 80's and into the 90's. It has since become more of a lifestyle channel and now has much more of cultural significance rather than a musical one, but the network wants to change that by introducing a new online platform dedicated to music called Artists.MTV.

YouTube is currently the go-to place for music discovery, and MTV wants a piece of it, hence the venture. Not only will Artists.MTV be a place for indie and major label acts, but also for unsigned artists as well. MTV wants to be able to have a place where new acts can be heard, promoted and hopefully (doubtfully) paid, but this seems like a real uphill battle.

Van Toffler, president of MTV parent Viacom Music Group, stated at SXSW last week that the goal is to be an all-encompassing musical experience. "You may discover music on Spotify, Pandora, or even MTV Hive," he said, "then you look them up on Wikipedia. Then you go to your Facebook page and tell your friends. Then you go to Songkick and see if they're touring. Then if the artist is lucky, you go to iTunes. It feels like there's an infinite environment to discover music - buy it, listen to it or pirate it, but there doesn't seem to be a uniformed galvanized place where artists could get information to their fans." Well, how about the artist's website, Facebook page or Twitter feed?

So what exactly does Artists.MTV have to offer to artists? Not only will artists have another place for fans to discover their music, but thanks to a partnership with Topspin, artists will be able to sell their music, concert tickets and merch directly to their fans, as well as receive direct payments via a "tip jar."

But the biggest carrot is the promise to connect bands to MTV itself. Artists.MTV will offer a program called Full Frontal where one artist a month is selected for a promo campaign on MTV, VH1 and CMT. The band will be picked by the fans and a committee of artists, managers and producers.

The site will be open to artists in May, and fans can view the site via a private beta soon, although the official launch won't be until sometime during the summer.

Artists already have too many options available to them and feel overwhelmed by them. Artists.MTV might be different in that the network brand still has some cache, but they've long been out of the real music business, and the networks demographic may not be transferrable for all but a few acts. Time will tell whether Artists.MTV will be just another shot in the dark or will have some real traction, but if I were a betting man, I'm not so sure I'd be placing any money on them.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

If Only The Industry Listened To Him

Jac Holzman is an old-school record label exec, having founded the venerable Elektra Records (home to rock luminaries like The Doors, Queen Carly Simon and The Stooges) as well as being an early influence on what eventually became MTV. You'd think that someone who's been in the label boardroom longer than most of today's tech whizzes have been alive would be decidedly out of touch, but Jac is more tuned to the cutting edge than almost anyone in the industry.

Listen for yourself on this brief interview with the man himself.

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Another Take On How Music Videos Have Hurt Music

We all know that music videos were responsible for changing the primary emphasis of most record labels from artist development to image development, but it seems that there's more to it than that.

In an interesting email to music industry gadfly Bob Lefsetz, former MTV exec Bob Wilson (who was also the founder of the now defunct industry trade magazine Radio & Records), talks about some of the research that the network did when it first began in the 80's. Among the surprising items they found that appear to have had a profound effect upon current music:

• Music is personal and a song means different things to different people (although we intuitively knew that already). When you put visuals to a song, the visuals over-power the personal meaning and everyone "sees" the same thing, which also de-personalizes the music.

• This visualization of music makes songs burn out much faster than just hearing them.

• Live performances are perceived differently since the mind sees them as "events."

• It usually takes 5 to 6 times for a person to hear a song and like it enough to buy it.

• "MTV doesn't play videos any more and the Internet has moved in to replace the new music void for those that crave new music. Things have changed but the way the brain takes it all in remains the same. The Internet allows a person to hear a song as many times as they want - whenever they want -- which should reduce the time to the purchase cycle -- especially when they can purchase and download the song they like from the source they are listening to it on..rather than have to make a trip to a record store. I think it will take some time and more research to monitor this but as you say - the model is changing."

Wilson goes on to say, "I believe history will prove the MTV period to be the beginning of the end of what music used to be to each of us." We already knew that, but perhaps we didn't really know the reason why.

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Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Prince Says "The Internet Is Over"

By now everyone has heard about the exclusive interview that Prince gave to the UK's Daily Mirror newspaper where he was quoted as saying, "The Internet Is Over," among other things that seemed pretty out-of-touch.

Haven't heard? Ok, some more quotes:
"The Internet is like MTV. Once it was hip and then suddenly it was outdated."

“The Internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it, and then they get angry when they can’t get it.”

"Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you."


Prince has shut down his official website, and he's never been on any social network, so it appears his online presence is nil. But are we being manipulated here?

Could it be that he knows very well what he's saying, and just saying it to get the maximum exposure for his new album, 20TEN? If so, wouldn't it be better that we were discussing how great his music is rather than a controversy?

Prince's new album will again be distributed as a CD inside the Daily Mirror, and he may even have a distribution deal Warner Brothers again, despite the major falling out they had some years ago. When the album comes out, let's see what the comments are then.

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Is The TJ The New Voice Of The Artist?

I just read about MTV's search for a an official twitterer, which they're calling a TJ (you know, Twitter Jock) and I think it's a brilliant idea. No, not because they're hiring someone to be their Twitter voice, but for creating the title.

Until now, anyone who twittered on behalf of an artist or corporate entity was viewed as more of a surrogate who did the job because the artist couldn't or wouldn't. Fans were usually upset when they found out that it wasn't the artist, and if they knew it was the surrogate up front, they took the communication lightly.

By giving the job an official name, the position now has some status that the fan or friend will hold in a greater esteem (as long as the job is done well, that is). It's exactly the position that's been needed in a band or artist's online presence.

So hat's off to MTV. You've created something greater than you know.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.