Q&A: Nic Jones, Vevo’s EVP, International

After less than one week in the country, Vevo’s executive vice president international has made headlines. On a panel last Thursday hosted by Ambition Entertainment in Sydney, Nic Jones, among many insightful comments about Australia’s music industry, said the global streaming market will see a massive change in the next two years.

Citing the sheer amount of licence deals that are due for renewal and that "will not be renewed”, Jones believes many digital services aren’t paying rights holders enough. Jones, along will Telstra Media’s head of sports and entertainment Ryan Kaveney, Group M’s investment director Danny Bass and Droga5 CEO Sudeep Gohil, also discussed the dichotomy of the live market: on one hand artists’ main income is coming from touring, but on the other hand our consumption habits are changing with the rise of streaming.

Vevo’s presence in Australia and New Zealand has been a priority for the music video and entertainment platform in recent months with the appointment of advertising veteran Brendan Muller as Country Manager for New Zealand, the expansion of Vevo’s premium offering in the territory and Vevo’s artist development program in partnership with Ford, Vevo Lift. The program most recently hosted a performance by NZ duo Broods in Sydney.

Internationally, Vevo continues its seesaw battle with nearest rival MTV. Vevo now has over 100,000 official music videos, original music programming and live concert events, gets more than 8 billion monthly views, almost 100 billion annually, and last month announced it has paid rights holders over $500 millionsince 2010 and that over half a billion dollars has been invested in music video programming via royalties.

TMN caught up with Jones whilst he was in the country to discuss the impending exit of Vevo’s CEO Rio Caraeff, YouTube’s new subscription service and why a paid-for model for Vevo is always on the cards.

Rio Caraeff has been with Vevo since its inception and has been integral in the company's growth year on year, what would you put down as his biggest achievements within the digital industry?
He is a true visionary who has been instrumental in building and developing the music business digitally and restoring the real value of the music audience.

Will Vevo announce the reason for his departure?
There is nothing to “announce” he has decided after sixyears at Vevo it was time to focus on a new challenge.

You mentioned at the masterclass thatmany of streaming services' existing licensing deals would not be renewed and that we'd see a big change over the next two years, why is that?
What I said was I thought there would be a major change over the next twoyears because artists and rights holders would not continue to give licenses to platforms that weren’t able to sufficiently monetise them.

It was reported Rio Caraeff tried to sell Vevo for $US1 billion this year, why was that?
That is factually incorrect. Our business is a start up and we are continually looking to build and invest in the business. There were some conversations with third parties about investment during the year but our owners have since decided to invest that money themselves and not seek outside investment

Has the non-exclusive partnership with YouTube hindered your deals with other digital media brands? I imagine more people are going to YouTube to watch a clip than say, Yahoo Screen.
YouTube is the biggest video platform on the planet. We are very happy to be their largest content partner and be distributed there. Yes we receive more views on YT than anywhere else but that is hardly surprising bearing in mind the above. And no that has not hindered other deals.

Could YouTube Music Key affect Vevo’s current label partnerships?
No I don't see why it would.

Vevo inked a deal with Apple Inc last year, will you have any involvement in Beats Music?
No.

What kind of branding partnerships are in the works right now?
Would love to tell you…we currently have a great deal with Ford with Vevo LIFT in Australia but any deals "in the pipeline" are just that, in the pipeline, and we will announce when we can.

How does Australia’s awareness and use of digital media enterprises match up to other territories?
That’s a tough question to answer because it does vary from client to client and indeed with each media. What I would say is that it’s a mature market but it’s also a market that has opportunities to build digitally. I think, probably from when I was here six years ago, when I was working here, I think the blow up of the broadband speeds and certainly the lack of the roll out of the MBM, have certainly slowed things down. If I’m honest, looking at Europe and the States in particular, it’s fair to say that there’s a lot more going on in those markets digitally, in terms of what clients are doing than there is here. That’s not to say there’s a big gap but it’s also not to say that there’s a bridge.

Would Vevo ever consider adopting a paid-for subscription model?
We’d always consider it. We’re just about to be five-years-old in America and three-years-old in international terms. We’ve spent our whole lives thinking ‘is there a path to a subscription format?’ and we’ll keep on doing so.

It’s a challenge for all business to change or to build new business models, not least for us because people are used to getting music videos for free for a very long time. So you’d have to think very carefully about what you could offer that would make people be prepared to pay. We’re always open to looking as new business models and new ways to build our business.