Major! YouTube Announces New “Official Artist Channels” – Combining VEVO & Personal Channels

As streaming continues to anchor itself as the primary means of music consumption, more pressure than ever is being placed on artists to deliver big numbers on-demand.

Indeed, whereas streams of music video and audio used to serve as an additive measure to the more dominant digital downloads, the roles have reversed.

This has caused for the birth and boom of artists whose success is fuelled primarily by streaming such as Migos, Cardi B, and Lil Uzi Vert. It’s also helped boost acts whose traditional sales aren’t quite blockbuster ala Rihanna. There’s evidence too to suggest that it could very well have been a catalyst for established winners such Beyonce pivoting towards visual-driven roll-outs.

However, streaming hasn’t been as advantageous to all.

See, part and parcel of the streaming push is the rise and prominence of VEVO, whose “machine” like size and reach have allowed them to help build huge followings for the acts who use their platform. These artists have typically been signed to labels of VEVO partners such as Sony Music, Universal Music, and select indie entities.

This, in effect, has made it quite difficult for many acts not in said equation to compete. For, they’re left to use “normal” YouTube channels (often relegated to drive behind the scenes clips and the like) to push their actual music videos. The end result being lower views than their VEVO counterparts. This has especially been the case for indie talent as well Warner/Atlantic acts – with the few exceptions of the latter being Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, and Jason Derulo.

It’s also put acts who’ve, for example left Sony for Warner, in an odd position. Because in jumping ship, they give up use of their VEVO (and the millions of subscribers accrued) to begin dropping audio and video on their standard YouTube channels. Most of which are often much less populous.

That all looks set to change, though, following a major new announcement from YouTube.

Head below for more on the exciting move, which is set to benefit the likes of Ciara and Rita Ora, as well as veterans like Janet Jackson, in a significant way…

The video giant this week announced that they are gearing up to launch “Official Artist Channels.”

Set for roll-out in the coming weeks, the move will see ONE primary destination created for each artist. In effect, all of an artist’s channels – including their VEVOs – will be consolidated into one all-encompassing destination.

With the change, subscribers will receive notifications for all content officially uploaded by an artist anywhere on the YouTube platform – whether that be VEVO or their standard YouTube channel.

Peep the explanation video:

While this is a huge development for hundreds of artists, it has sizeable benefits for some of TGJ‘s top names.

Ciara and Rita Ora are two acts who made the move from their Sony Music labels to Warner last year. In doing so, they effectively left behind the millions of subscribers earned on their VEVO channels. CiCi has yet to release, but Rita has and, despite managing to still notch up hits, the disparity between views on her current artist channel and her VEVO are undeniable (i.e 10s of millions vs 100s of millions). With this new system, she’ll now be able to benefit from the reach she built on her previous label/platform. Same with Ci.

Elsewhere there are legends such as Janet Jackson who’ve made the move from the major label system to running her own indie imprint. The end result has seen her YouTube presence become super scattered: some videos on VEVO, others on her personal page, and countless more uploaded by fans. By uniting everything into one official spot, the confusion is somewhat remedied.

The news comes after Warner Music inked a deal with VEVO recently to begin sharing their content on the powerful platform. It also arrives following YouTube’s hiring of respected industry juggernaut Lyor Cohen as its Global Head Of Music.

Put simply, this levels out the playing field for artists and allows them to capitalize on their established brand, catalogue, and followings towards the benefit of their current outleti. For fans, they’ll be able to stay in the loops regardless of whatever label changes happen “behind the scenes.”