[not Britney] more on the death of MTV
- From: "the Bede" <rspwsownthebede@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007 15:54:34 -0500
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071005/BUSINESS11/710050373/1436/business
Music videos draw most viewers online
'Demand and convenience' said to be among reasons most videos watched on the
Web
By JEFFERSON GRAHAM
USA Today
Friday, 10/05/07
LOS ANGELES - Viewership of music videos moved from TV to the Web so fast
that few saw it coming.
Yahoo, the Web's top music destination, streams 240 million music videos
monthly; MTV, which defined the young music-video medium but now devotes
nearly all of its airtime to non-music video fare, attracted 1 million
viewers in prime-time viewing in August.
"Online is the single largest place where consumers are watching music
videos," said Rio Caraeff, executive vice president of eLabs, Universal
Music Group's digital division. "When we release a video, we still put it on
MTV and BET, but in terms of the most impact from audience and revenue, it's
online."
Today, TV networks pay
Videos used to be given to networks such as MTV to sell CDs. Now, labels
charge for video use. "It was clear that all of our content needed to be
paid for," said Thomas Hesse, president of Sony BMG Music Entertainment's
global digital business unit. "The times when we could make our content
available for free so someone would buy the CD are over. We drive usage to
the Internet sites, so we should be paid."
Hesse wouldn't disclose exact figures, but Caraeff said licensing of music
videos to sites such as Yahoo, AOL Music and YouTube reaps $20 million
yearly for Universal and is growing steadily.
YouTube has been at odds with much of the entertainment industry because
some of its users digitize content on their own and put it on the site
without compensating the owner. MTV owner Viacom is suing YouTube owner
Google in a copyright-infringement case.
But Universal, Sony BMG, Warner Music and EMI have agreements allowing their
music videos to be shown on YouTube. In exchange, they share in ad revenue.
YouTube attracts the largest video viewing - including movie trailers,
amateur productions and tech podcasts - on the Web, with 44.8 million
visitors in August.
With 23.4 million visitors in August, Yahoo is the most-visited music site,
followed by ArtistDirect, MySpace's music channel, AOL Music and MTV's music
channels, including MTV.com, VH1.com and CMT, according to ComScore.
Bloggers can post them
This summer, Yahoo began offering an application to post many of its videos
onto pages of the wildly popular social-network site Facebook. It has since
expanded this concept, via a test site, to post videos from Universal and
Sony BMG onto personal Web sites or blogs.
Once word gets out and music fans realize they can take the latest videos
by, say, Justin Timberlake or Fergie and post them to their blog, Yahoo
Music general manager Ian Rogers believes the viewing of videos online will
grow "from 10 to 100 times over the next one to two years," he said.
"There's no question people want to do this."
He said Yahoo fought for several years to shut down sites that offered ways
to hack into Yahoo Music and post videos. "We know the demand is there."
Demand and convenience caused music fans to migrate to the Web to watch most
of their music videos, Rogers said.
"If you want to see a music video, why would you turn on MTV and hope to see
the video you want, when you could go online and get it immediately?" he
said. "The shift happened as music videos became more available online and
less available on TV. This was a natural evolution."
MTV, the channel that defined music videos, isn't sitting out the digital
revolution. On-air, the TV channel urges viewers to go to MTV.com to see the
latest videos and video premieres. "We realize that we live in an on-demand
culture," said MTV Executive Vice President Courtney Holt.
Bands still need TV
Holt said on-demand viewing is great, but it's TV exposure that still makes
the difference for emerging bands. He cites groups such as OK Go and
Paramore, which had major online exposure but took off after MTV started pla
ying their videos.
MTV recently bought a 50 percent interest in digital music service Rhapsody
to expand its online music reach. Both Rhapsody and MTV.com show music
videos on their sites, while some sites - most notably Apple's iTunes -
offer them for sale. Caraeff said streaming music videos represent the bulk
of the action for music videos and downloads represent a tiny fraction of
sales. Hesse said his best-selling download of all time - a recent
Timberlake song - clocked in at just 58,000 sales for $1.99 apiece.
"This is a good, growing business," he said. "As more people get video
iPods, we'll start to see more people buying music videos."
Label executives are also looking for streams and downloads to mobile
phones - currently a niche business - to explode in the coming years.
"The average usage time on a phone for entertainment programming is no more
than two or three minutes," Caraeff said. "The short-form nature of music
videos makes it a perfect fit."
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: more on the death of MTV
- From: Peck
- Re: [not Britney] more on the death of MTV
- From: That Don Guy
- Re: more on the death of MTV
- Prev by Date: Your favorite thing to blow?
- Next by Date: Re: ? 4 RSPWites in Noo York City:
- Previous by thread: Your favorite thing to blow?
- Next by thread: Re: [not Britney] more on the death of MTV
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
