Next stop, Vevo?
Perhaps, but for now, Warner Music Group has licensed its music video and concert catalog to Hulu. The deal, shared with Digital Music News on Tuesday, closely follows a similar arrangement with EMI in November.
The integration starts with WMG unit Warner Bros. Records. Atlantic Records, Rhino Records, and other WMG-distributed labels will soon follow suit.
Hulu is a well-conceived, well-executed presentation of television, movie, and other video content, and the music video treatment will be interesting to witness. Earlier, Hulu indicated that music videos will not be presented as vast, searchable lists – instead, they will be part of a larger, artist-focused collection of content. That vision is already apparent in early implementations, including dedicated spaces for Norah Jones and now, Muse.
Ironically, Warner Music is absent from Vevo, an initiative that is much closer to home. The parties will probably come to terms in early 2010, though in the meantime, Vevo is still the bruised rookie. Instead of a smooth-and-clean ‘Hulu for music,’ Vevo has suffered from delivery issues and massive content gaps.