Warner Music to make videos available to Vevo?

Is three a crowd for Warner Music Group when it comes to allowing access to Vevo? The video-hosting platform was set up in December 2009 by Universal Music and Sony Music Entertainment with Google and Abu Dhabi Media Group.

Warner, the third largest major, was to be part of the consortium which launched Vevo but formed an alliance with rival MTV Networks instead.

Now Vevo’s new CEO Erik Huggers is holding talks with Warner Music CEO Stephen Cooper about accessing its music videos, sources told the New York Post. Huggers’ pitch is that all the major labels should be united to monetise premium music videos.

The Post sources emphasised that talks were ongoing and that a decision was far from being made. Another meeting is reportedly to be held next week.

If Warner was to come in with its millions of videos, that would allow it to rival YouTube as a stand-alone destination. Warner’s videos are already on YouTube. It could also offer paid subscriptions in addition to its ad-supported business.

Vevo claims it delivers 100 billion streams annually and reportedly generated revenue of US$350 million last year. It is available in 17 countries. It launched in Australia and New Zealand in April 2012 via MCM Entertainment, as it was known then.

In contrast, YouTube’s net global revenue was $2.8 billion last year ($1.3 billion in the United States alone), and expected to hit $3.5 billion 2015, according to Wall Street firm Jefferies & Co. YouTube claims 1 billion users, that every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views, half of these on mobile devices. It is localised in 75 countries and available in 61 languages.

But over the next five years its growth is expected to plateau. As it is, major labels are annoyed by the small profits they get from YouTube and reportedly pushing for a greater cut of its ad revenue. The dilemma that YouTube faces is that it finds it hard to monetise most of its traffic because it’s too short for ads or its user-generated content is too brand-unfriendly.