YouTube is often criticized for lower royalty levels, but those royalties are growing very, very fast. That is, 370% year-on-year, according to just-release data from Tunecore.
YouTube is already the world’s largest online video platform with over a billion users, which is almost a third of all people on the internet. The company’s video advertising revenue has been increasing year on year, and according to a report by Bloomberg last year, the company ”estimates a gross revenue of $12.8 billion by 2017, and was valued at $70 billion on its own”.
YouTube touts its reputation for empowering artists to grow their careers, distributing their original music content across a global network and earning revenue for artists. That explains their latest acquisition of Bandpage, though the video giant has been heavily criticized for delivering royalties below Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming music rivals.
That said, Bandpage is a company that aims to help musicians to increase their revenue across innumerable channels. In that light, the acquisition could help YouTube expand and grow further, as artists are always looking for ways to earn money in the digital industry.
On YouTube, artists earn revenue whenever an advert is placed on their video, at least for claimed channels (that part is important). Those per-streams are paltry, though they’re also booming: according to Tunecore, member artists enjoyed a 370% increase in royalties on the platform in 2015.
The recent addition of YouTube Red — an ad-free streaming service which costs users $10 a month — has also helped the platform grow revenue per user. YouTube Red premiered its first four exclusive video shows last week, part of a broader bid to compete with Netflix and Amazon.
And when it comes to size, YouTube is an absolute global giant, and a platform that is only getting bigger.
No, Youtube royalties don’t stink.
Our artists have been earning 11 to 15 cents a view from Youtube for situations where the viewer sees the entire video ad placed before the material. Clearly, it’s the best streaming rate on the internet.
“for situations where the viewer sees the entire video ad placed before the material”
And so many fans do that, right…
(Dear YouTube: Ever heard of adblock-blocking?)
Wow, that’s awesome …. if that’s a typical rate on YT, I wonder how that hasn’t been a big story.
“Our artists have been earning 11 to 15 cents a view from Youtube for situations where the viewer sees the entire video ad placed before the material.”
What percentage of views involve the viewer watching the entire video ad? I imagine many people skip video ads and/or use ad blocker altogether.
Hi Sarah, any interesting news? 🙂
Hi Anonymous!!!
Lots of interesting news, but we’re not quite ready to share publicly yet. On a totally unrelated subject, we’re relocating to Nashville to work more closely with some partners there… 😉
p.s. were those your comments on YT monetization on the royalties article?
Good to hear you’re on the right track, Sarah.
Yup, my comments…
I thought so…. some of the more helpful comments I’ve seen here in a while 🙂
Thank you! 🙂
I’ll believe that when I see it. So, let’s see it! [email protected]
Too bad that the vast majority of artists can’t use Tunecore to monetize UGC on YouTube.
See the comment section here for more information: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/02/15/how-to-get-all-the-royalties-you-never-knew-existed/
Exploded from zero to quadruple zero!
YouTube is a medieval music composter.
Billions of tunes have to be composted to generate some advertising STINK and sporadic live grade flower!
Time to harness internet to direct music monetization! Music has more potential than Google or all of digital advertising.
an article that points out the rates per youtube stream and how to go about claiming any royalties that you may have from youtube plays would be good too.
Thanks for the information, though.
Yep. 370% increase, but an increase of what ?? A 370% increase of a 0,0000000000001 cent rate isn’t worth mentionning.
Excellent. Now I will make 4.7cents this year!
kid ink