Vevo, the upcoming video site founded by Universal Music Group and also owned by Sony Music and Abu Dhabi, will include music and music-related video archives from CBS's Last.fm and 90 CBS Radio stations, following a deal between the two companies.
The Vevo site and syndication service is set to launch in North America next Tuesday, and it has yet to ink deals with either EMI, Warner Music Group or any of the independent label aggregators. Discussions are said to be ongoing with both of the remaining major labels. EMI confirmed that talks are ongoing, while Warner declined to comment about any talks that might be ongoing. Deals with one or both are likely before the launch. A Vevo spokeswoman said, "we hope to make an announcement on this front before [Tuesday's] launch."
This CBS deal brings behind-the-scenes video content, artist video profiles and the like from Last.fm and CBS Radio. However, none of Last.fm's or CBS Radio's audio content will be available on the site.
The deal ignores Last.fm's and CBS Radio's main focus — audio programming — because video services can offer free, on-demand music that ad-supported music-only sites struggle to pay for. When people access music through a video service, their attention is more likely to stay focused on the window where the song is playing, so they tend to see advertisements.
The guiding principle behind Vevo is to showcase "premium" music and related videos alongside ads that cost more than what YouTube's pages can command, ostensibly because some advertisers are scared of their brands showing up next to something weird. Vevo hopes "premium" content will command a premium from advertisers.
The site will function as a destination site for consumers, but also as a syndication service to pipe its collection of official music videos, some user-generated music videos, artist interviews, backstage clips and so on to YouTube — which built Vevo's back-end — and other syndication partners. The only way to see some videos could be on Vevo or a site that syndicates videos from it. Users will also be able to embed some of the videos on third-party sites, as they can with YouTube videos.
Vevo posted three increasingly-cryptic teaser videos this week in advance of Tuesday's launch. The first shows Kid Cudi promoting McDonalds and Vevo – sort of funny, but relatively sane:
The next one depicts the company's logo as teams of breakdancing gummy bears:
The most recent video features 50 Cent smashing televisions with a baseball bat:
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