What is VEVO and What Does It Mean For Indie Musicians?

Vevo.com is the new music video website launched yesterday (Dec by Universal Music Group with cooperation from Google (YouTube). As if Universal Music did not already have enough of a monopoly on YouTube videos, being the single most viewed channel, this is their supposed killing blow to corner the market. Vevo is marketed as THE destination for premium music video content. Their hope is to generate advertising revenue by placing ads all over and around their video content. You can’t really blame them for trying. Music videos were originally created as ads themselves, big expensive loss leaders to sell CDs. As long as the only way to get music was to buy the CD and the only way to see a video was to watch MTV, everything was going according to plan.

Of course the internet changed all that, and now, although music videos are still extremely popular, they no longer serve their original purpose for record labels. CD sales are laughable these days so it makes no sense to spend a ton of money on a music video. That’s why the labels are trying to re-brand them as “premium content” which means a vehicle for selling advertisements for other things.  It really ads a whole new dimension to the term “commercial music”. Any musician that ever worried about “selling out” had better get over it real soon. They may find that making music means selling soap or cell phones. It is unclear whether the actual musicians will see any of that ad revenue, assuming any is actually generated. Some big name advertisers have signed on to Vevo so far, but will their numbers show the kind of ROI that they expect or that Vevo is depending on to maintain their business model? We’ll see.

So what does this mean for the unsigned artist? Well, several things. If Vevo succeeds, it is going to further stratify the signed from the unsigned. Today, users search YouTube for music video content to watch. If those users suddenly switch to searching Vevo, then the only music videos they will ever see will major label releases. Vevo wants to be the “YouTube for music videos.” The thing is, YouTube is already the YouTube of music videos. Hopefully, that will not change. Personally, I do not see it happening.

Here’s why. YouTube is successful for the same reasons Facebook and MySpace became popular. It’s a social network. Users can create their own content and they participate in the community aspects, favoriting, commenting, etc. Its power to the people, Baby! And people are primarily more interested in themselves than ANY musician or record label. Its just human nature. People want their own channel/page/whathaveyou and they want the ability to upload their own content.  YouTube gives them that.

That kind of democratization of content is scary to the majors. Vevo is an attempt by them to reign in all of that social stuff and re-assume control as the gatekeepers of the music industry. Having an account on Vevo does not mean you can upload your own content, it means you can make playlists. But those playlists will be limited to the content that UMG decides you should be watching. You think getting your song played on a commercial radio station is hard, try getting your indie video on Vevo.com!

Vevo.com is not the whole picture, however. Vevo still has a channel on good old YouTube, and I’ve seen some of the UMG artists’ YouTube channel names now have vevo appended on the end of them. The Brad Paisley channel for instance. All of his videos from the previous, non-vevo channel have magically been transported to the new channel, view counts in tact. Interesting, considering that YouTube will not allow an average user to switch alter their channel name or move videos from one channel to another.

So far Sony and EMI have joined UMG in support of Vevo, which leaves Warner as the only major (big 4) record label not yet on board. Other labels who have signed deals with Vevo (according to their website) are Hollywood Records, Walt Disney Records, CBS Interactive Music Group, Big Machine Records, Concord Music Group, Lyric Street Records, ABKCO, Caroline Distribution, Fontana Distribution, INgrooves, IODA, RED and The Orchard.

It remains to be seen how much impact Vevo will actually have on the music video world and the music industry in general. At the launch party in Manhattan, Bono declared that Vevo would save the music industry. So far, I am unimpressed. In fact, I have not been able to even create an account or watch a single video due to the fact that Vevo.com has been been plagued with server issues all day long.

For indie bands, the name of the game is still YouTube proper, despite the fact that it may be showing a little favoritism with the Vevo guys . Its the place where you can have your own channel and with the right strategy get your music the kind of exposure previously only available to the major labels. As an independent artist, a music video is not “premium content” to sell ads. Its your calling card to get you name (and more importantly your music) out there.