YouTube Is About to Get into the Music Subscription Game. Could This Change Everything?
There is no bigger site for music in this arm of the galaxy than YouTube so when they announced plans to get into the streaming game, people took notice.
With Music Key set to launch soon, competitors–Pandora, Rdio, Spotify and everyone else–are watching the situation very closely. MIDIA Research takes a look at what this could mean for the growth of streaming music services.
YouTube is the globe’s leading digital music service but for its size delivers comparatively little back to the music industry in direct revenue. Even the one billion dollars paid out in Content ID revenues only represents $0.14 for each of its one billion users per year, since the launch of Content ID in 2007. Now YouTube is poised to launch its long anticipated subscription service, Music Key. It should prove to be among the most compelling music product offerings in the marketplace, yet YouTube’s net impact on the subscriptions’ sector will still be net negative with its free tier sucking the oxygen from its premium competitors.
