Music Industry

New study of YouTube reveals some fascinating data. Look!

Pex, a global online analytics company, just published the results of a study into the kind content that dominates YouTube. Here are some topline results.

  • As of the end of 2018, there were 5.2 billion videos on YouTube, which works out to at least 1 billion hours or 114,000 years.
  • 621 hours of new content are uploaded every minute. They forecast that number to grow to over 1,500 by 2021.
  • Another way of looking at things: 1.3 billion videos will be uploaded just this year.
  • The average length of a video is just over 15 minutes. (Remember that videos were limited to 10 minutes until 2011.)
  • Total views? Just 29,000,000,000. Yes, we’re well into the trillions.
  • There are 33 billion comments, 32,951,011 of which are trolling and negative. (I made that last number up, but you get my point.)
  • The fastest growing genre of video? Music. By the end of 2019, almost 40% of YouTube’s library will be music-related.
  • 5% of YouTube’s library are actual music videos
  • 20% of all views goes to music. That worked out to two trillion views last year.
  • The average number of views for music videos is 16,400.
  • These videos have the lowest average length at 6.8 minutes.
  • The most profitable genre of video? Not gaming. It’s music.
  • Now the bad news: only 0.64% of all videos reach 100,000 views.
  • However, that 0.64% generates more than 81% of all views.

The full report (along with some nice graphs) can be found here.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 39671 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.