How YouTube’s 1bn+ Club is Changing the Face of Global Music Culture

Throughout 2018, while locked in a bitter war of words with rightsholders and creators over Article 13, YouTube quietly but dramatically expanded its role as the most powerful platform for creating global superstars. Nowhere is this better illustrated than with the YouTube music videos that have one billion streams or more. Not only did that number become bigger than ever in 2018, but the rate at which videos joined the 1bn+ club grew too. With music audiences fragmenting into algorithmically defined niches, YouTube continues to create truly global scale, mass market audiences.

As of Q1 2019, 139 music videos have joined the 1bn+ club, with a record 52 of those reaching one billion in 2018 alone. Not only are more YouTube videos joining the 1bn+ club, but they are getting there faster. On average, the 1bn+ videos released in 2018 got to that milestone ten times faster than those released at the start of the decade. But something very interesting is happening. Now that Latin America and US Hispanics are becoming a major constituency of the YouTube audience, Latin music videos are becoming the dominant part of the 1bn+ club. 63% of all 2018 videos that reached one billion streams were Latin music videos. YouTube is fast establishing itself as the consumption method of choice for Latin American audiences, and their listening behaviour is helping reshape the face of global music culture. In doing so, YouTube is helping to create a new generation of superstars – Latin superstars.

The artist with more 1bn+ videos than any other is Puerta Rican reggaetón and Latin trap artist Ozuna. He appears, either as the lead artist or as a featured artist, on eight, yes eight, videos with a billion streams or more, generating 10.1 billion streams to date. Although Anglo-centric artists fill three of the other top five spots, the tide is turning. In 2018 Latin 1bn+ videos generated three and a half times as many streams as Anglo-centric pop 1bn+ videos did.

There is another important, less obvious implication of the rise of Latin artists on YouTube. Latin America is now such a large part of the global streaming user base that it can generate hits that look global in scale, but in reality are only regional. India will start to do the same in 2019 and 2020. Record labels need to take a more nuanced approach to reading global-scale data trends. Just because a track breaks into Spotify’s Global 100 does not mean it is a global hit. In today’s world, global scale does not always mean global appeal.

Hip Hop, a tale of two streams

On audio streaming services Hip Hop is the ubiquitous genre, with its artists among the highest profile in the music industry. Spotify’s top three most streamed tracks of 2018 were all Hip Hop, while for Apple Music it made up the entire top seven. Among YouTube’s biggest tracks, however, Hip Hop is a minor player, with just 7% of 1bn+ videos. Demographics and geography play roles, but so do the respective relationships of the platforms with the major labels. The labels have more overall influence on Spotify and Apple Music’s programming, and additionally focus intense efforts on influencing their curated playlists (Spotify especially). Because Hip Hop is the priority genre for the major labels, all of whom have a strong US-centric worldview, Apple Music and Spotify end up with a strong Hip Hop skew. YouTube, however, is much less directly influenced by the record labels and relies on algorithms rather than programming to surface content for its users. YouTube’s genre mix thus more closely follows the tastes of its users, while Apple and Spotify’s more closely follow the priorities of the labels.

So, what does the rise of Latin artists and the under-performance of Hip Hop on YouTube say about today’s global music landscape? For me, it is this:

Anglo-centric artists have been the global superstars for decades because it took the marketing dollars of big, global record labels to make them. Now, large scale, regional audiences can have the same impact, by just listening.

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This post highlights just some of the data and findings that are going to be revealed in our forthcoming report: 1bn+ Music Videos: Latin Takeover

 If you are a MIDiA client and would like to get early access to the data email enquiries@midiaresearch.com

 If you want to learn more about how to become a MIDiA client, email stephen@midiaresearch.com

Making Free Pay

2018 was a big year for subscriptions, across music (Spotify on target to hit 92 million subscribers), video (global subscriptions passed half a billion), games (98 million Xbox Live and PlayStation Plus subscribers) and news (New York Times 2.5 million digital subscribers). The age of digital subscriptions is inarguably upon us, but subscriptions are part of the equation not the whole answer. They have grown strongly to date, will continue to do so for some time and are clearly most appealing to rights holders. However, subscriptions only have a finite amount of opportunity—higher in some industries than others, but finite nonetheless. The majority of consumers consume content for free, especially so in digital environments. Although the free skew of the web is being rebalanced, most consumers still will not pay. This means ad-supported strategies are going to play a growing role in the digital economy. But set against the backdrop of growing consumer privacy concerns, we will see data become a new battle ground.

Industry fault lines are emerging

Three quotes from leading digital executives illustrate well the fault lines which are emerging in the digital content marketplace:

“[Ad supported] It allows us to reach much, much deeper into the market,” Gustav Söderström, Spotify

“To me it’s creepy when I look at something and all of a sudden it’s chasing me all the way across the web. I don’t like that,” Tim Cook, Apple

“It’s up to us to take [subscribers’] money and turn it into great content for their viewing benefit,”Reed Hastings, Netflix

None of those quotes are any more right or wrong than the other. Instead they reflect the different assets each company has, and thus where they need to seek revenue. Spotify has 200 million users but only half of them pay.  Spotify cannot afford to simply write off the half that won’t subscribe as an expensively maintained marketing list. It needs to monetise them through ads too. Apple is a hardware company pivoting further into services because it needs to increase device margins, so it can afford to snub ad supported models and position around being a trusted keeper of its users’ data. Netflix is a business that has focused solely on subscriptions and so can afford to take pot shots at competitors like Hulu which serve ads. However, Netflix can only hike its prices so many timesbefore it has to start looking elsewhere for more revenue; so ads may be on their way, whatever Reed Hastings may say in public.

The three currencies of digital content

Consumers have three basic currencies with which the can pay:

1. Attention
2. Data
3. Money

Money is the cleanest transaction and usually, but not always, comes with a few strings attached. Data is at the other end of the spectrum, a resource that is harvested with our technical permission but rarely granted by us fully willingly, as the choice is often a trade-off between not sharing data and not getting access to content and services. The weaponisation of consumer data by the likes of Cambridge Analytica only intensifies the mistrust. Finally, attention, the currency that we all expend whether behind paywalls or on ad supported destinations. With the Attention Economy now at peak, attention is becoming fought for with ever fiercer intensity. Paywalls and closed ecosystems are among the best tools for locking in users’ attention. As we enter the next phase of the digital content business, data will become ever more important assets for many content companies, while those who can afford to focus on premium revenue alone (e.g. Apple) will differentiate on not exploiting data.

Privacy as a product

So, expect the next few years to be defined as a tale of two markets, with data protectors on one side and data exploiters on the other. Apple has set out its stall as the defender of consumer privacy as a counter weight to Facebook and Google, whose businesses depend upon selling their consumers’ data to advertisers. The Cambridge Analytica scandal was the start rather than the end. Companies that can — i.e. those that do not depend upon ad revenue — will start to position user privacy as a product differentiator. Amazon is the interesting one as it has a burgeoning ad business but not so big that it could opt to start putting user privacy first. The alternative would be to let Apple be the only tech major to differentiate on privacy, an advantage Amazon may not be willing to grant.

The topics covered in MIDiA’s March 27 event ‘Making Free Pay’.The event will be in central London and is free-to-attend (£20 refundable deposit required). We will be presenting our latest data on streaming ad revenue as well as diving deep into the most important challenges of ad supported business models with a panel featuring executives from Vevo, UK TV and Essence Global. Sign up now as places are going fast. For any more information on the event and for sponsorship opportunities, email dara@midiaresearch.com 

How YouTube’s Domination of Streaming Clips the Market’s Wings

Firstly, happy new year to you all. Now on to the first post of 2019.

The Article 13 debate that shaped so much of the latter part of 2018 will continue to play an important role throughout 2019 while European and then national legislators deliberate on the provision and the wider Digital Copyright Directive of which it forms a part. Regular readers will know that MIDiA first highlighted the risk of unintended consequences of Article 13. Today we present the case for the impact YouTube has on the broader streaming market, driven by the advantages of its unique licensing position. (This is a complex and nuanced topic with compelling evidence on both sides of the debate).

To illustrate YouTube’s impact on the streaming market this post highlights a few of the findings from a new MIDiA report: Music Consumer Behaviour Q3 2018: YouTube Leads the Way But At What Cost?

YouTube is the dominant music streaming platform, with 55% of consumers regularly watching music videos on YouTube, compared to a combined 37% for all free audio streaming services. YouTube usage skews young, peaking at nearly three quarters of consumers under 25. Although YouTube leads audio streaming in all markets — even Spotify’s native Sweden — there are some strong regional variations. For example, emerging streaming markets Brazil and Mexico see much higher YouTube penetration, peaking at close to double the level of even traditional music radio in Mexico. Indeed, radio is feeling the YouTube pinch as much as audio streaming. 68% of those under 45 watch YouTube music videos compared to 41% that listen to music radio. The difference increases with younger audiences and the more emerging the market. For example, in Mexico YouTube music penetration is 84% for 20–24 year olds, compared to 37% for music radio. Streaming may be the future of radio, but right now that streaming future is YouTube.

YouTube’s advantage

While cause and effect are difficult to untangle, the implied causality here is that YouTube’s unique value proposition steals much of the oxygen from the wider streaming market. Due to its unique licensing position – which Article 13 would likely change, YouTube has more catalogue and fully-on-demand free streaming, not to mention standout product features such as complete music video catalogue and social features such as song comments, likes / dislikes. Services that do not use safe harbour protection (i.e. the vast majority of audio streaming services) do not have these assets and so are at a distinct market disadvantage to YouTube. If you are a consumer in the market for a free streaming service, you have the choice between everything that you want, with complete control or constraints and restrictions, with fewer features. It’s not hard to see why consumers from Mexico through to Sweden make the choice they do. With a free proposition this good (especially when you factor in stream ripper apps and ad blockers), who needs a subscription?

A new value gap emerging?

Against this though, must be set two crucial factors:

1. Audio streaming services would fare better if they had more of the features YouTube and Vevo have
2. YouTube and Vevo are still the best ad monetisation players in the global market (i.e. discounting Pandora as it is US only). What’s more, (annual) audio ad supported ARPU declined in 2018 to $1.23, while video ad supported ARPU rose to $1.08. Ad-supported users grew faster than revenue while the opposite was true of video. There is a real risk here of an audio ad-supported value gap emerging. Spotify needs to get better at selling ads, fast.

Fully committed to subscriptions?

The final part of the YouTube impact equation is premium conversion. Since appointing Lyor Cohen, YouTube has taken a much more proactive approach to subscriptions, heavily touting its, actually-really-quite-good, YouTube Music premium product. Whether Alphabet’s board is equally exuberant about subscriptions, and whether YouTube Music’s launch lining up with the Article 13 legislative process was coincidental, are both open questions…

But politics and intent aside, YouTube is always going to be far poorer at converting to paid subscriptions because a) its user base is vast, and b) that user base is there for free stuff. So, while 58% of Spotify’s weekly active users (WAUs) are paid, the rate for YouTube Music weekly active usership is in single digit percentage points. That dynamic is not going to change in any meaningful way. In fact, YouTube has a commercial disincentive for pushing subscriptions too hard. It makes its money from advertising, and advertisers pay to reach the best possible consumers. Subscription paywalls lock away your best users, out of the reach of ads, which in turn reduces the value of your inventory to advertisers, which leads to declining revenues. YouTube is not about to swap a large-scale high-margin business for a small-scale low-margin one. Moreover, this issue of advertisers trying to reach paywalled consumers is going become a multi-industry issue in 2019. See my colleague Georgia Meyer’s excellent ‘Marketing to Streaming Subscribers’report for a deep dive on the topic.

Article 13 as a platform for innovation?

The overarching dynamic here is of a leading service that constrains the opportunity for services that are not able to play by the same rules. A levelling of the playing field is needed, but this should not just be legislation (and of course should be careful not to kill music’s ad supported Golden Goose). It should also see labels and publishers finding some common ground between the Spotify and YouTube models, and making those terms available to all parties. Because if YouTube does one thing really well, it shows us how good the streaming music user proposition can be when it is not too tightly constrained by rights holders. Let’s use Article 13 to raise the lowest common denominator, not to bring YouTube down to it.

Streaming music services need a user experience quantum leap in 2019; wouldn’t it be great if Article 13 could be the springboard for transformation and innovation?

Article 13 – Laws of Unintended Consequences

I do not normally add disclaimers or qualifiers at the start of blog posts, but given how divisive the whole Article 13 debate has become, there is a big risk that some readers will make incorrect assumptions about my position on Article 13. The emerging defining characteristic of popular debate in the late 2010s has been the polarization of opinion e.g. Brexit, Trump, immigration. Article 13 follows a similar model, leaving little tolerance for the middle ground. You are either anti-copyright / pro-big tech or you’re pro-big government / anti-innovation.

Such extremes are the inevitable result of multi-million-dollar lobby campaigns by both sides. Reasoned nuance doesn’t really play so well in the world of political lobbying. My objective, and MIDiA’s, from the outset has been to strike an evidence-based, agenda-free position, that considers the merits of all aspects of both sides’ arguments. So, before I embark on a blog post that will likely be viewed by some of being pro-Google and anti-rights holder (it is not, nor is it the opposite), these are some ‘value gap’ principles that MIDiA holds to be true:

• YouTube has misused fair use and safe harbour provisions against the legislation’s original intent
• YouTube’s ‘unique’ licensing model creates an imbalance in the competitive marketplace
• YouTube’s free offering is so good that it sucks oxygen out of the premium sphere
• Google has rarely demonstrated an unequivocal commitment to, nor support of current copyright regimes
• YouTube being able to license post-facto rather than paying for access to repertoire, gives it a competitive advantage over traditional licensed services
• There is too big a gap between YouTube ad-supported payments and Spotify ad-supported payments, meaning too little gets to rights holders and creators
• Take down and stay down is a feasible and achievable solution (albeit within margins of error)
• The current situation needs fixing in order to rebalance the streaming market

Nonetheless, for each one of these positions from the rights holder side of the debate, we also see an equally long and compelling list of points from YouTube’s side. Rather than list them however, I want to explain how ignoring some of the counterpoints could unintentionally create a far bigger problem for the music industry than the one it is trying to fix.

Value gap or control gap?

What really riles labels is that they cannot exercise the same degree of control over YouTube that they can over Spotify and co. This is very understandable, as they rightly want to be able to determine who uses their music, how it is used and how partners pay for usage. However, taking a very simplistic view of the world, the label-licensed approach has created: a few tech major success stories that don’t need to wash their own faces (Apple Music, Amazon Prime Music); a collection of smaller loss-making services (e.g. Deezer, Tidal); and one big break out success story that can’t turn a profit (Spotify). In short, the label-led model has not (yet at least) resulted in the creation of a commercially sustainable marketplace. Rights holders want to pull YouTube into this controlled economy model. YouTube is understandably resistant. After all, YouTube is a crucial margin driver for Alphabet. It cannot afford it to be loss leading. Alphabet’s core ad businesses generate the margin that subsidises Alphabet’s loss-making bets such as space flight, autonomous cars and curing death (I kid you not). Ad revenue has to be profitable.

Fixed costs / variable revenue

As we explained in our recent State of the YouTube Economy 2.0 report, YouTube went double or quits during the last two years, doubling down on music, making music over index across its user base, in order to try to make it an indispensable hit-making partner for labels. That bet now looks to have failed. So, the question is, will YouTube acquiesce to the new command economy approach to streaming or do something else—perhaps even walk away from music?

The fundamental commercial imperative for YouTube is as follows:

• Spotify pays a fixed minimum fee to rights holders for each ad supported stream, even if it does not sell any advertising against it. The rate is the same for every song, every day of the year.
• YouTube pays as a share of ad revenue. This means it is always paying rights holders a consistent share of its income, including all the up side on revenue spikes. But ad inventory is not worth the same 365 days a year. There are seasonal variations meaning a song can generate less rights holder income in December say, than January. Also, not all songs are worth the same to advertisers: they are willing to pay much more to advertise against a Drake track than they are for an obscure 1970s album track.

This revenue share approach without minimum per stream rates is why YouTube has a profitable, scalable ad business, but Spotify does not (as recently as Q1 2018 Spotify had a gross margin of -18% for ad supported, compared to a +14% gross margin for premium). Remember, that’s gross margin, imagine how net margin looks…

The walk away scenario

Minimum per-stream rates could break YouTube’s business model, especially in emerging markets where it usage is strong, but digital ad markets are not yet developed. It would also set a precedent that other YouTube rights holders and creators would want the same applied to them.

So, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that YouTube could simply opt to walk away from music, applying take down and stay down its way (i.e. every piece of label content stays down). It could feasibly continue to provide ad sales support and audience to Vevo, but if YouTube gets to this point, then relationships are likely to be fractured beyond repair, meaning Vevo would likely have to decamp to Facebook and build a new audience there, one which is crucially not accessible to under 13s.

A YouTube shaped hole

So, what? you might ask. The so what, is the YouTube shaped hole that would exist in the music landscape. Readers of a certain vintage will remember the long dark years of piracy booming and corroding the recorded music business. It was YouTube that killed piracy, not enforcement. Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit, but the ubiquitous availability of all the world’s music on demand, on any device, nullified the use case for P2P in an instant. Add in stream rippers and ad blockers, and you’ve got a like-for-like replacement. Piracy created and filled a demand vacuum. YouTube (and Spotify, Soundcloud, Deezer etc.) have all since filled that same space, pushing P2P to the margins. YouTube, however, has had by far the biggest impact due to its sheer global scale. If YouTube pulls out from music, that YouTube shaped hole will be filled because the demand has not changed. Kids still want their free music, as in fact so do consumers of just about every age.

Piracy could be the winner

The most likely mid-term effect of YouTube shuttering music videos would be piracy in some form or another raising its head, filling the demand vacuum. Probably a decentralised, end-to-end encrypted, streaming interface built on top of a torrent structure, sort of like a Popcorn Time for music. Then it really would be back to the bad old days.

Is this the most likely scenario? Perhaps not. But perhaps it is. I suppose a just-as-possible outcome is that YouTube sticks up the proverbial middle finger and creates its own parallel music industry, using a unified music right and ‘doing a Netflix’. Yes, YouTube could be a next-generation record label, with more reach and bigger pockets than any major record label. If the labels are worried about Spotify disintermediation, YouTube could make that threat look like a children’s tea party.

As one YouTube executive said to me a couple of years ago: “This is how we are as friends. Imagine how we’d be as enemies.”

Too much to handle?

‘Couldn’t Spotify, Deezer and Soundcloud fill the potential YouTube shaped hole?’ I hear you ask. If these companies did take on YouTube’s 1.5 billion music users on the current financial agreements they have with rights holders, and with their currently far inferior ad sales infrastructure, they would be out of money in no time. It would literally kill their businesses. Based on YouTube’s likely music streams for FY 2018 and, say, a minimum per stream rate of $0.002, Spotify and co would need pay nearly $3 billion in rights revenue, regardless of how much revenue it could generate. Let alone the unprecedented bandwidth costs for delivering all that video. Of course the flip side, is that in the mainstream streaming model, that is how much potential revenue is up for grabs. So, more money would flow back to rights holders. But the extra revenue could come at the expense of the survival of the independent streaming services, ceding more power to the tech majors.

The artist and songwriter value gap

Throughout all of this you’ll have noted I haven’t said much about artists and songwriters. That’s because the value gap isn’t really about how much they get paid, even though they get put front and centre of lobbying efforts. It’s about how much labels, publishers and PROs get paid. And none of them are talking about changing the share they pay their artists and songwriters once Article 13 is put into action. That particular value gap isn’t going to be fixed. Even if Spotify picked up all of YouTube’s traffic, on say a $0.002 minimum per stream rate, a typical major label artist would still only earn $300 for a million streams, while a co-songwriter would earn just $150. The new boss would look pretty much like the old boss.

Be careful what you wish for

The laws of unintended consequences tend to proliferate when legislation tries to fix commercial problems without a clear enough understanding of the complexities of those very commercial problems.

It is of course in the best interests of YouTube and rights holders to carve out a workable commercial compromise, and I truly hope they do. But there is a very real risk this may not happen if Article 13 is successfully enacted into national member state legislation. Perhaps the phrase that rights holders should be considering right now is ‘be careful what you wish for’.

State of the YouTube Music Economy 2.0: A Turning Point for All Parties

YouTube is the most widely used streaming music app globally but it is also the most controversial one, locked in a perpetual struggle with music rights holders, with neither side quite trusting the intent of the other. 2018 has already seen YouTube’s renewed focus on subscriptions as well as a European Parliament vote that could potentially remove YouTube’s safe harbour protection. Meanwhile, oblivious to these struggles, and despite the rise of audio streaming services, consumers are flocking to YouTube in ever greater numbers and, crucially, using it for music more than ever before. Back in 2016, at the height of the value gap / grab debate, MIDiA published its inaugural State of the YouTube Music Economy report. Now two years on we have just released the second edition of this landmark report. MIDiA clients have immediate access to the ‘State of the YouTube Music Economy’ report, which is also available for purchase on our report store. Here are some of the highlights from the report.

2016 proved to be a pivot point for YouTube. Rights holder relationships were at an all-time low with value gap / value grab lobbying reaching fever pitch. Meanwhile, vlogger hype was also peaking and longer-form gaming videos were beginning to get real traction. If there was ever a point at which YouTube could have walked away from music, this could have been it. The picture though, has transformed, with YouTube doubling down on music and in doing so, making itself an even more important partner for record labels.

With young consumers abandoning radio in favour of streaming, YouTube is the biggest winner among Gen Z and Millennials; penetration for YouTube music viewing peaks at 73% among 16–19 year olds in Brazil. But its reach is even wider: YouTube is the main way that all consumers aged 16 to 44 discover music.

Doubling down on music

YouTube has responded by improving its discovery and recommendation algorithms and gearing them more closely to music. The combined impact of demographic shifts and tech innovation is that YouTube is making hits bigger, faster. Billion-views music videos used to be an exceptional achievement, now they are becoming common place. By end July 2018, Vevo reported that there were already ten 1 billion views music videos for tracks released that year, accounting for 17.2 billion views between them. One billion view music videos that were released in 2010 took an average of 1,841 days to reach the milestone. Videos released five years later took an average of just 462 days, while those from 2017 took an average of just 121 days to get to one billion views. Over the course of eight years, YouTube has become more than ten times faster at creating billion-view hits.

Under indexing

The impact on revenue is less even. Music videos are the single most popular video category on YouTube, accounting for 32% of views but a smaller 21% of revenue. Music is still the leading YouTube revenue driver with $3.0 billion in 2017 but many other genres, gaming especially, over index for revenue. (Many YouTube gamers have multiple video ads placed at chapter markers throughout their videos. Because music videos are shorter they get a smaller share of video ads.) Emerging market audiences are also pulling down ad revenues. The surge in Latin American markets has pushed artists like Louis Fonsi to the fore, but the less-developed nature of the digital ad markets there means less revenue per video. This trend is accentuated with the rise of emerging markets music channels like India’s T-Series becoming some of the most viewed YouTube channels globally.

The net result is that effective per stream rates are going down on a global basis, but are going up in developed markets like the US, where the digital ad market is robust. This brings us to one of the existential challenges for YouTube. What does the music industry want YouTube to be? After years of nudging by labels, YouTube is now embarking on a serious premium strategy, but is that really what YouTube is best at? What YouTube does better than anyone else in the market is monetise free audiences at scale on a truly global basis (China excepted).

A turning point

2018 is a turning point for YouTube. The accelerated success it and Vevo have enjoyed since 2016 over indexes compared to YouTube as a whole, which means that music is a more central component of the YouTube experience than it has ever been. However, driving impressive viewing metrics was never YouTube’s problem, convincing music rights holders that it is a good partner is. The value gap war of words may have died down a little but that is as much a reflection of the rise of audio streaming and a return to growth for record labels than anything else, as the European Parliament’s Article 13 vote highlighted. Safe harbour was never designed to be used the way YouTube does for music, and the fact it does so creates a commercial disincentive for other streaming services to play by music rights holders’ rules. The fact that YouTube can get a greater volume of rights and more cheaply than other services andbe the largest global streaming service unbalances the streaming market. Though against this must be set the fact that YouTube has been able to create a more rounded value proposition without operating within the same confines as other streaming services.

The music industry needs the YouTube-Vevo combination, especially while Spotify scales its global free audience. The road ahead will be rocky, especially if Article 13 is eventually passed and also if rights holders continue to be disappointed by engagement growth out accelerating revenue growth due to the growing role of emerging markets. But it is in the interests of all parties to make the relationship work because neither side wants a YouTube shaped hole in the streaming marketplace, even if a Facebook / Vevo partnership was to try to fill some of it.

Click here to see more details of the 29-page, 6,000 word, 11 chart reporton which this blog post is based. The report is based upon months of extensive research, industry conversations, MIDiA data and proprietary company data and represents the definitive assessment of the YouTube Music Economy.

Despacito Is About To Hit 4 Billion YouTube Views

­­In January Despacito became the second fastest music video in YouTube history to hit one billion views, taking just 97 days to do so. Now it is on track to hit four billion. In January Despacito was part of a succession of new music video consumption records that YouTube and Vevo are setting. YouTube music video views are on the rise, dramatically so, driven both by more users (YouTube announced 1.5 billion signed in active users) and deeper engagement. This is YouTube’s music renaissance and the record labels (their marketing divisions at least) are loving the increased exposure their artists are receiving. At first glance this might not appear to make much sense, given that: a) video streaming growth is outpaced by audio streaming in key markets such as the US and UK, and b) that the whole value gap-grab debate is as far from a resolution as it has ever been. Then, along comes Despacito to drive yet another bulldozer through everything, breaking all the rules again.

The days of one billion streams being considered exceptional are fast disappearing. Despacito added one billion streams in July alone. Just as Spotify spent 2015 and 2016 continually rewriting the rules each quarter, now YouTube is doing the same in 2017. Spotify, of course, is also having a spectacular year but it has established a steadier pace of change, especially in developed markets. Spotify is the new normal (until it’s not again). YouTube had its ‘normal’ but now the acceleration of usage, particularly from Latin America, is making the previously accepted reference points irrelevant.

Moreover, Latin American driven streams might actually intensify the value gap-grab debate. In 2016 YouTube delivered a monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) of $0.07 to the labels. In contrast, Spotify delivered a monthly ad supported user ARPU of $0.34. On paper YouTube has a lot of ground to make up, but things are a little more complex than that. YouTube pays out a share of ad revenue to rights holders. So, if revenues go down the amount it pays goes down by the same rate. Spotify (at risk of simplifying excessively) pays out on a per stream basis. So, if revenues go down, Spotify still pays a certain amount.

This is where Latin America comes in. The local video advertising markets throughout Latin America are much less developed than in the US and, additionally, there is much less advertiser demand. Compared to the US, there are fewer advertisers with less money to spend on consumers, who also spend less money. This means that advertiser demand massively outstrips supply, which suggests that ad prices are lower. So, as Latin American YouTube music consumption grows, effective per stream rates will decline. In our MIDiA’s 2017 Predictions Report, 2016, we predicted that this would happen.

“In 2017, audience behaviour will continue to grow faster than advertiser budgets, meaning that CPMs (and in the case of YouTube, effective per stream rates for music) will fall.”

YouTube and the music industry are unlikely to truly see eye to eye, but value gap or no value gap, we are now at a decision point. The accelerating role of Latin America and other emerging markets in YouTube consumption will see more and more records broken, with bigger and bigger hits made, but the gap between consumption and revenue will widen. So the music industry needs to decide what it really wants YouTube to be for the next few years: promotion or revenue. Trying to make it do both well will most likely result in YouTube doing neither of them properly.

YouTube And Latin America Are Taking Over The World

Unless you have been on Mars for the last couple of days you will have seen the news that Luis Fonsi’s ‘Despacito’ has become the most streamed track in history with 4.6 billion streams. The figure includes a couple of versions of the track (ie the one include a certain Justin Bieber) but is an impressive tally nonetheless. The landmark raises 2 key trends:

1. The role of the Latin American market
2. The role of streaming

Latin Takeover

On the first point, Latin America is becoming a streaming powerhouse. This is a trend we have long anticipated at MIDiA and it is why we have a Latin American analyst (Leo Morel in Brazil) and have been fielding consumer surveys in the region since we launched the company. ‘Despacito’ is not an isolated event. For example, Shakira’s ‘Chantaje’ became the first Latin American Spanish language track to reach 1 billion views earlier this year. But Latin America’s contribution to streaming is uneven. It accounts for 17% of all subscribers globally but 27% of all streaming video users. Indeed, Brazil and Mexico are Vevo’s 2^nd and 3^rd largest markets globally, after only the US. The socio-economic realities of Latin America mean that it will always over index towards free streaming compared to European and North American markets. But the streaming appetite is clear. With such large streaming appetite, expect Latin American audiences to increasingly shape future hits. Once enough Latin American fans get behind a track the snowball effect kicks in: once in Spotify’s global streaming chart it then finds its way into curated playlists and then volumes grow even faster. A similar effect is felt as the momentum kicks YouTube’s and Vevo’s algorithms into gear. But because the region skews towards YouTube and Vevo the regional revenue impact under indexes. Thus we have an emerging dynamic where Latin American audiences create the hits and European and North American audiences pay for them. This is the new normal.

Just as important as the rise of Latin America, is the continued rise of YouTube. Value Gap or no Value Gap, YouTube’s role in breaking and making hits is clear. More so, it is becoming more pronounced. YouTube streaming growth might be slowing in the US but the same does not necessarily apply globally. Indeed, taking the time it takes for YouTube / Vevo music videos to reach 1 billion views we can see that the 2017 hits ‘Despacito’ and ‘Shape Of You’ got there 40% faster than the average for tracks from 2016, 2015 and 2012. Only Adele’s 2015 hit ‘Hello’ got there faster, and that was a highly anticipated event that is a unique case.

 

YouTube added 500 million users between 2012 and 2017. That is no mean feat but nor is it stellar growth. Over the same period Facebook added more than 1 billion users and WhatsApp came from next to zero to 1.2 billion. YouTube is a mature platform and so growth is not just measured in terms of users but also in terms of engagement, especially streams per user. And this is where YouTube really seems to be delivering. A way of relating the growth of 1 billion view music videos to the total user base is dividing the average number of monthly views each video had en route to 1 billion and dividing that by the total number of YouTube users. In 2012 this figure was 0.19, by 2017 it had fallen to 0.17. Thus, for the 1 billion club, more YouTube users are streaming these songs more times. Growth is coming both from audience and activity.

 

There are other mitigating factors. For example it is conceivable that YouTube and Vevo are simply becoming better at creating mega hits, concentrating the audience around big hits. Thus making YouTube/Vevo more of a superstar economy. Vevo’s recommendation algorithms and YouTube’s autoplay feature play a role too, contributing to more streams. The autoplay was negotiated, along with full albums, from the labels as part of YouTube’s Music Key service. A service that never even made it out of beta, but YouTube of course held onto the good parts of that deal. Spotify, that is how you do digital deals!

 

The fact that streaming records are now being broken with such regularity shows that we have arrived at a tipping point. Streaming is transitioning from fast growing digital revenue stream, to the centre of an entirely new business. As impressive as ‘Despacito’s numbers are, get used to these sorts of records being made and broken on a regular basis. And get used to Latin America and YouTube playing an ever bigger role.

 

Change Is Afoot In Music Video

Music video’s two power players are both in the news for strategic resets. On the one hand YouTube has announced that it is merging its YouTube Music and Google Play Music teams while on the other hand Vevo has announced it is postponing the launch of its subscription service in favour of prioritising global expansion. These are both important developments in their own rights but together form part of a changing narrative for music video.

Music video is streaming music’s killer app. According to MIDiA’s latest consumer survey, 45% of consumers watch music videos on YouTube or Vevo every month, while 25% of consumers use YouTube for music every week (more than any of the streaming audio services). So what YouTube and Vevo do has real impact.

YouTube Is Where Google Is Placing Its Music Bets

YouTube’s merging of teams is not a huge surprise. It always appeared overkill having 2 separate teams, especially considering that Play was performing so poorly in the market (its weekly active users are measured in single digit percentages) and that Google’s music priority has always been, and will always be, YouTube. Although nothing will change immediately in terms of user proposition, the strategic direction of travel is clear: YouTube is where Google will place its music bets. Which places even greater importance on rights holders and Google coming to an understanding around royalty payments. YouTube moving to minimum guaranteed per stream rates is untenable (for Google) as is the Value Gap/Grab (for rights holders). Something has to give.

My long-term bet is still on Google creating a parallel music industry around YouTube, one that is entirely opted out of the traditional music industry’s rights frameworks. But a more immediate concern for Google is contingency planning in the event of Vevo upping sticks and becoming the centre piece of a revamped Facebook video play. A combination of no Vevo and disgruntled rights holders would be a recipe for disaster for YouTube’s music strategy.

Facebook And Vevo May Be Courting 

Vevo jumping ship to Facebook is not as far-fetched as it might have seemed when it was first mooted a few years ago. Facebook is now the world’s 2^nd biggest online video property and has finally admitted that it is a media company. Slowing ad revenues in 2017 will see Facebook double down on ancillary revenue streams and content will be a key plank of that strategy. Games is the biggest addressable market and it has already made moves in that direction. Growing video is another. While streaming music is a relatively small market opportunity for Facebook, it has wide appeal. Launching an AYCE streaming service would be an ill-advised (and highly unlikely) option for Facebook, but partnering with Vevo would be a higher margin, lower risk way of getting into music. It would also be the perfect vehicle with which to showcase Facebook’s next generation of video UI, which will include features such as curation, channels, recommendations etc. In short, a lot less like Facebook video and lot more like YouTube.

The Rise Of Music Inspired Video

Interestingly, Vevo’s CEO Erik Huggers has announced that Vevo will be increasing its focus on short form, non-music video, such as artist interviews, mini-documentaries, and animated shorts. This snackable, highly shareable content bears closer resemblance to the sort of video that works well in Facebook’s more social-centric video platform than YouTube’s more viewer-centric environment. Vevo’s non-music video approach is smart. As we explained in our report ‘From Music Video To Music Inspired Video’, if rights holders want their share of overall video time to grow, or at least hold their own, then they need to start exploring creating music related video rather than just music videos.

The core consumption format will still be the music video, but the additional content expands reach and time spent. In a Facebook environment (especially if Instagram was incorporated) this sort of content would spread like wildfire. Add into the mix that Huggers also referenced Vevo’s prioritization of building its direct audience via its own apps (ie not via YouTube) and we might just be starting to see the emerging shape of a planning-for-life-after-YouTube strategy. Even if Vevo decided to stick with YouTube (which remains the most likely outcome), it could use all of these moves as leverage for getting a better deal.

Change is afoot in the music video space and we may just be beginning to see the two key players beginning to put competitive space between each other. But perhaps most tellingly, as both companies up their game, they are also both, in different ways distancing themselves from their subscription plays. Music video is the killer streaming app for many reasons. The fact that it is free is reason number one, and Vevo and YouTube both know it.

The Socially Integrated Web and Facebook’s Content Strategy

Click on the video below to view my latest Music Industry Blog podcast.  This episode addresses the Socially Integrated Web, the term I use to describe Facebook’s content strategy.

Topics covered in this episode include:

• Joining users’ digital dots
• The four types of digital content ecosystems
• How Facebook will extend its ecosystem reach
• The universal content dashboard
• What will happen to content companies that integrate with Facebook