YouTube’s Importance Declines As Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal Streams Surpass Music Video Streams For First Time
On-demand streaming music delivered by Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and others grew at an amazing 108% compared to the first half of last year. For the first time ever, those streams surpassed YouTube Music video streams; a fact that's certainly not lost on the labels and publishers currently negotiating a new contract with YouTube.
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There were 209.4 billion on-demand music streams in the first half of 2106, according to new data provided by BuzzAngle Music in a mid-year report. 114 billion, or more than half of those streams, were audio plays. That marks the first period in which streams from audio services like Spotify and Apple Music exceeded video streams from YouTube, Vevo and and similar services.
Both formats experienced growth, with video music stream showing 23% gain for a total of 95 billion. Audio stream plays in the first six months grew 108% over the same period last year.
MORE: U.S. Music Consumption Up 6.5%, On-Demand Streams Grew 58%
[BuzzAngle Music Mid-Year Report]
Labels and artists should just pull all their music from YouTube.
Any of the streaming services are more legitimate than YouTube’s thievery hidden behind DMCA loopholes.
Go right ahead. Good luck with discovery. If YouTube bottled itself up into a paid service and charged you enterprise-level prices in order to use its video toolset and reach its massive audience (a la a marketing service) then everyone would be tripping over themselves at the opportunity to use it for free.
I see the threats all the time. Truth is, if YouTube shut off the music industry and called its bluff, holy hell would break out and the backs of budgets everywhere would be broken trying to survive in today’s digital climate. Some of these folks would go bankrupt trying to do what they are doing today for free on all of these platforms that they bitch about. It’s the Age of Visual Culture, face it. Adapt or die, same old rule. Smh