YouTube Announces Its First-Ever Music Awards

 

Ever since YouTube launched in 2005, the world of music and video sharing has never been the same. Now, the influential and incredibly popular website has announced that its first-ever live-streaming music awards show will take place next month on November 3^rd.  

One of the best things about YouTube is that it is a platform that has allowed no-names in the world of music to become overnight stars. This is one of the things that makes the YouTube Music Awards different from other similar entertainment events: the nominees will be comprised of artists and songs that YouTube users have turned into hits over the last 12 months. What this means is that the YouTube Music Awards will be a much more interactive, fan and user-controlled event than other awards. Similarly, it gives home-grown musicians a chance to be recognized by an enormous web audience.

The Youtube Music Awards is as much a celebration of website users and music fans as it is the musicians themselves. The event is shaping up to be really fantastic, with scheduled performances from Eminem, Lady Gaga, and Arcade Fire, to name a few. Actor and musician Jason Schwartzman will host the live event, and music video pioneer Spike Jonze will act as creative director.

YouTube says that “in the days leading up to the November 3 event, nominees will share official music videos, covers, parodies, concerts, interviews, and fan videos on YouTube – so you can stay in the loop, find your faves and discover new music you didn’t eve know you loved!” The Music Awards will truly be an interactive, engaging event unlike any other. Stay tuned for more information about the show, and for the list of nominees to be announced later on this month!

YouTube to Launch Music Service

YouTube is reportedly working on developing a music subscription, according to Fortune and Evolver FM. Despite the fact that the service is currently devoted to videos of all kinds, they are already the top source for on-demand music in the world—so launching a subscription music service makes sense.

YouTube’s music catalogue is farther reaching than many companies’ catalogues, and they pay a lower per-song royalty than Pandora, Rhapsody, Spotify, and others. In its current form, it’s already a formidable source of competition. The launch of a new service devoted solely to music will make it even more so.

If YouTube chooses not to launch a paid subscription service, it may end up costing them valuable contracts with publishers and labels. And because YouTube is owned by Google, it’ll end up costing both of the companies money in the end.

“While we don’t comment on rumor or speculation, there are some content creators that think they would benefit from a subscription revenue stream in addition to ads, so we’re looking at that,” reads YouTube’s official statement on the matter.

One positive for everyone will be the removal of so many ads if YouTube does move forward with a music subscription service. For YouTube, they won’t have to split so much revenue with ad companies, and for users, they won’t have to deal with annoying ads for every single song they want to listen to.

So will YouTube put Spotify, Pandora, and all the others out of business? Only time will tell.