Like music videos?

Quite a few people do. Music videos and music-related content are easily YouTube’s most-popular single genre. TubeMogul did the numbers and concluded that the top five music labels alone control 64.52% of all of the views of YouTube’s top 50, and are the top five publishers of all time.

Source:TubeMogul

Now a massive chunk of that content is about to migrate to Vevo.

Vevo, the digital joint venture between two labels representing nearly 60% of the U.S. recorded music market — Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music Entertainment (SME) — is due to launch in December. It will be powered by (but not owned by) YouTube.

EMI and Warner Music Group are also in discussion to allow Vevo to carry their content, possibly on a non-exclusive basis.

Here’s the pitch, according to the press release:

Music fans will be able to view professionally-created content from UMG’s and SME’s broad array of chart-topping artists through VEVO, the innovative online premium music video hub being built for consumers, advertisers and content owners that will blend the very best in top-notch music content with YouTube’s leading edge video technology and user community. The content will be made available on YouTube through a newly created VEVO channel, on VEVO.com, the service’s marquee destination site, and through a special VEVO branded embedded player. The service will also serve as a syndication platform for additional internet destination sites, expanding the reach of the VEVO brand across the worldwide web.

The Vevo offering is expected to include “professionally produced [high quality] music videos, concerts, original web series, artist-generated videos, and curated user-generated videos.”

What’s so special about Vevo?
Interscope-Geffen-A&M Chairman Jimmy Iovine painted the big picture in an interview earlier this month on paidContent.org:

“Vevo for the first time will give labels the ability to push out our product without having to go through radio or TV stations. Before, we had to make it, ship it and pray for a hit. Now, with Vevo, we can create the content, sell the ads, and even use the data to market new music to people alongside things they already like.”

For the first time in perhaps a decade, the music industry (love it or hate it) expects to regain online control of its content, at least in its original un-mashed, music video format. Control — that’s what makes Vevo such a big deal.

So far, reports suggest that Vevo will play nice and let consumers interact with the content in the same way they currently can on YouTube. It’s an undertaking that needs to honored, both in letter and in spirit, lest consumers backlash.

There are a number of (let’s be generous and call them unintended) side-effects of the Vevo-sization of music, however. There’s no word yet on whether indie musicians can post their own music videos on Vevo without having a Big Music corporate sponsor. We’d expect that particular door to be bolted shut, at least for now, which reduces the chances of serendipitous discovery of new talent by the public at large.

On the other hand, the corridors of YouTube will be curiously quiet without the constant thrum of Big Music. Could be a whole new chance for unrepped talent to tapdance down those empty corridors …

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Tags: content owners, high quality music videos, music content, music market, sony music entertainment, universal music group, vevo, video technology, youtube