Vevo to Stream Live Music Events
Participants attending the Vevo keynote on day two of the Digital Music Forum East in New York City yesterday got a surprise when Vevo's president and CEO Rio Caraeff announced that the company would offer live music events later this year.
The announcement was made almost as an aside, and with no further details. Caraeff didn't say what events the company was looking to stream or if live events would cost viewers a fee.
Most of the keynote came off as a victory lap, with Caraeff talking about how the site began and how well it's performed since launching in December 2009. Vevo streams music videos and is co-owned by Sony Music and Universal Music, with streaming provided by YouTube. The idea behind the site, said Caraeff, was to restore luster to music videos and to show advertisers that they have value.
Vevo's Rio Caraeff speaks to the Digital Music Forum East in New York on Thursday.
"We only do what's best for the fan who loves music," Caraeff asserted, explaining that the site isn't centered around labels or music retailers.
Before Vevo launched, Caraeff said, 60 to 70 percent of music videos watched online were streamed from YouTube. Rather than fighting the video giant, the labels decided to work with it. In the process, they cleared out duplicates of music videos, so that viewers wouldn't be distracted by poor quality copies.
"We tried to improve the signal-to-noise ratio," Caraeff said.
Vevo currently offers over 25,000 videos from over 4,000 artists, Caraeff told the audience. He also said that the site's videos would soon be shown on AOL Music and CBS Interactive. The average Vevo viewer watches 6.2 videos per month, for over 30 minutes of viewing time. The site streams over 30 million videos per day.
Besides getting into live events, Vevo will also soon offer original programming, Caraeff said.
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