Blog: YouTube Music

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Could YouTube be the music-first social platform the industry needs?

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Feb 2024

music video

TikTok

YouTube

In December, we mused on what could happen if artists collectively stepped off the content treadmill. With Universal Music Group (UMG) removing its catalogue from TikTok, that thought experiment came startlingly close to fruition.

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Why Disney’s Epic Games investment challenges YouTube

Ben Woods

9 Feb 2024

YouTube

Disney

Epic Games

YouTube’s chief executive, Neil Mohan's, latest open letter was full of confidence . A little over a week since YouTube recorded a 16% jump in advertising revenue to $9.2 billion for Q4 2023 , he outlined four big bets to advance the business this year.

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Music subscriber market shares 2023: New momentum

Mark Mulligan

8 Feb 2024

music subscriber market shares

Streaming market share

Market share

With UMG leading the charge to reshape the music industry into a more label-friendly form, 2023 may, with hindsight, go down as the year before everything changed . Whatever lies ahead though, new models will take time to deliver benefits.

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Like Netflix, music needs a ‘second screen’ strategy

Tatiana Cirisano

4 Jan 2024

Music streaming

Netflix

SVOD

The attention economy is more competitive than ever, with all entertainment types increasingly competing with each other for the same finite time. This has led to new levels of multitasking, like listening to a podcast while doing the daily Wordle, or online shopping from your iPhone while catching up on The Crown .

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Goodbye Google Podcasts: What’s next for YouTube Music?

Annie Langston

5 Oct 2023

YouTube

YouTube Music

Podcasts

YouTube’s podcast bet just got bigger. Last week, Google announced that its standalone podcast app, Google Podcasts, will shut down in 2024. Since YouTube’s official podcast launch , this strategy was expected , as Google Podcasts began rolling back some of its podcast features while YouTube Music started offering more.

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Streaming is becoming more like radio — what now?

Tatiana Cirisano

2 Mar 2023

Music streaming

Spotify

YouTube Music

Last week, both YouTube Music and Spotify launched new, radio-like features. Spotify introduced an AI-powered voice DJ, which will talk to users about why songs are included in personalised mixes. Meanwhile, YouTube Music is giving users more ways to customise streaming radio stations — they can now choose up to 30 artists, and specify things like genre, artist frequency, and the balance of chosen artists versus new recommendations.

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YouTube Music’s podcast launch reveals competitive agenda with Spotify

Annie Langston

1 Mar 2023

Podcasts

YouTube

YouTube Music

After months of speculation , YouTube has officially launched podcasts — on YouTube Music . This U.S.-only launch includes both audio and video podcasts, making podcasts that were already on YouTube available on its music streaming platform.

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Why UK Christmas number ones are the current charity of choice

Ashleigh Millar

23 Dec 2021

Christmas streams

Music Charts

YouTube Music

It is the most wonderful time of year… we get to watch (and influence) the fight for the Official Charts’ UK Christmas number one. And in the lead for, arguably, the most coveted spot in UK music is none other than internet star LadBaby, featuring his wife and pop icons Ed Sheeran and Elton John .

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Music Subscriber Market Shares Q1 2020

Mark Mulligan

23 Jun 2020

Streaming

music subscribers

music subscriber market shares

WWDC would have been a perfect opportunity for Apple to announce another streaming milestone for Apple Music. It didn’t but the good news is that MIDiA already have a figure for Apple Music, as part of our latest music subscriber market shares.

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Music Subscriber Market Shares H1 2019

Mark Mulligan

5 Dec 2019

Amazon Music

Deezer

Google

The global streaming market continues to grow at pace. At the end of June 2019 there were 304.9 million music subscribers globally. That was up 34 million on the end of 2018, while the June 2018 to June 2019 growth was 69 million – exactly the same rate of additions as one year earlier.

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How YouTube’s Domination of Streaming Clips the Market’s Wings

Mark Mulligan

3 Jan 2019

Ad Supported

ad supported arpu

ad supported streaming

Firstly, happy new year to you all. Now on to the first post of 2019. The Article 13 debate that shaped so much of the latter part of 2018 will continue to play an important role throughout 2019 while European and then national legislators deliberate on the provision and the wider Digital Copyright Directive of which it forms a part.

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Is YouTube Serious About Music Subscriptions This Time Round?

Mark Mulligan

17 May 2018

Ad Supported

Freemium

Spotify

In 2014 YouTube launched its inaugural music subscription service YouTube Music Key in beta. The following year YouTube announced it was closing it ahead of the launch of YouTube Red , a multi-format subscription video on demand (SVOD) offering, of which music was going to be sub-component.

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Quick Take: Frustrate and Destroy – YouTube’s Frontloaded Strategy

Zach Fuller

23 Mar 2018

Apple Music

deeper

lyor cohen

Listen to any music streaming debate and it will not be long before you the value gap discussion regarding YouTube is brought up. It is a point MIDiA has discussed at length through distinguishing Spotify and YouTube’s business models (that of all streams created equal vs share of ad revenue), but YouTube Head of Music Lyor Cohen is looking to change that.

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Change Is Afoot In Music Video

Mark Mulligan

9 Feb 2017

Facebook

facebook music strategy

Google

Music video’s two power players are both in the news for strategic resets. On the one hand YouTube has announced that it is mergingits YouTube Music and Google Play Music team s while on the other hand Vevo has announced it is postponing the launch of its subscription service in favour of prioritising global expansion .

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