Music Ally

There might be discussion around the viability of YouTube’s ad-supported business model in the music industry, but the company’s director of video partnerships Patrick Walker tried to dispel them in yesterday’s closing session at MidemNet, where he shared the stage with Spotify’s Daniel Ek.

“Now we’re monetising over a billion videos per week,” said Walker, who also claimed that 75 of the world’s top 100 advertisers ran campaigns on YouTube last year, and that the site signed 500 new partners during 2009.

Walker also said that YouTube is generating CPMs of between £15 and £30 in the UK for pre-roll ads on the site.

He also pointed to the success of Susan Boyle as being fuelled by her initial popularity on YouTube, even if the original Britain’s Got Talent clips of her audition famously weren’t generating ad revenues for original broadcaster ITV.

“Just being present has value, even if you don’t monetise the clip at the point of access,” said Walker.

He was also asked about this month’s controversy around US band OK Go, who reacted furiously when their label refused to allow their latest video to be embedded outside YouTube.

“We create tools that allow rightsholders to determine their destiny on the platform,” said Walker, although he went on to describe the label’s decision in this case as misguided. “It’s an education issue, but we’re not going to force people to push their content out to places where they don’t feel comfortable.”

We’ll have a separate story on what Ek had to say during the session, but you can read our liveblog of the event on the Midem(Net) Blog.

Tags: MIDEM, midemnet, patrick walker, youtube

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 7:54 am and is filed under Digital Music News, midemnet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.