Changes are afoot within Google Play Music, with YouTube’s chief business officer Robert Kyncl now overseeing its business development and partnerships.
Billboard broke the news last night. “The industry has been talking to us about simplifying our relationship with them and we listened, took it to heart and decided that the time is right now to do it,” he said.
“So we consolidated our partnerships on the music side for Google Play Music and YouTube and I think we’ll be able to service our partners whether they’re publishers, labels, or artists much better this way through a unified relationship.”
It removes one of the questions about how Google operates two closely-related yet also potentially-competing streaming services: Google Play Music and what’s now YouTube Red.
The report stressed that the two services will continue to be separate, while maintaining their offer that any subscriber gets access to both. Google is also now talking about payouts from both services combined: $3bn so far.
“While the company declined to break down how the revenues were distributed or give a time frame, a source at YouTube said the majority of the distributed earnings was derived from ad-supported revenue,” noted Billboard. While Google Play Music does now have a free tier in the US, that suggests YouTube accounts for the lion’s share of that $3bn.
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