How much do artists really make from Vevo?

August 6, 2020

I don't know if there is a definitive answer, but I thought it is worth comparing these different answers:

" The exact amount of money you’ll make on a video depends on a number of factors. But several experts confirmed with us that, on average, the money works out to between $1,000-$2,000 per million views. Yes, million. At the high end, that’s about $0.002, or one-fifth of a cent, per click. That’s around half of the per-stream payout you’ll get from Spotify, and less than a third of your haul from Apple Music.

This being the music business, that’s not the end of the story. If you’re signed, your record label gets a cut. Got a manager and a lawyer? Them too. Is there a featured artist? An additional songwriter? A producer who made the beat? Did you hire a company to help you get all the money YouTube owes you in the first place? All of them get a fraction of your fraction of a cent. So of the $1-2K, an artist will likely have a few hundred bucks left over at the end of it all."

https://www.complex.com/music/2017/11/how-artists-make-money-on-youtube

And here are a few estimates from Quora:

" Vevo pays about $0.00222 to $0.0025 per view. And in a 2013 study, they paid out about $100 million dollars in royalties to artists with a total of 40–45 billion views. "

https://www.quora.com/How-often-does-vevo-pay-you

"I have been in the online advertising business for quite a long time and I know the amount of earnings that a content provider should expect. Nowadays, there are many Ad networks which pay publishers on a CPM basis ( pay per 1000 views ). More than 75% of these Ad networks pay more or less the same rate. The industry range is $2 to $8 per thousand views. Let me give you an example with Tinashe Youtube VEVO:"

Tinashe: Cold Sweat - 795,000 views

Tinashe: All Hands on Deck - 54 million views

The CPM claimed by VEVO in one of their interviews with CNET is $25 - $40. However, artists will get about 50% or less.

Taking $25 CPM, the total revenue generated by VEVO from advertisers on these videos would be:

Cold Sweat - $19,875

All Hands on Deck - $1,350,000

However, the actual amount paid to artists, as quoted by the CEO of VEVO is:

“Money is trickling back to the labels: A label whose videos rack up 10 million streams on Vevo could collect around $70,000”

Vevo CEO confirms it's all about business

This translates to a CPM of $7 for 1000 views. Therefore, Tinashe would earn the following:

Cold Sweat - $5565

All Hands on Deck - $378,000"

https://www.quora.com/What-do-celebrities-get-from-Vevo-for-their-YouTube-channel#:~:text=VEVO%2C%20which%20is%20owned%20by%20the%20major%20labels%2C%20announced%20at,45%20billion%20views%20a%20year)..)

"Rockonomic did some simple arithmetic and divided the revenue by the views. Ta-da! Based on grade school math, artists stand to earn anywhere from $0.00222 to$0.0025 per stream.

We decided to apply the formula to some of VEVO’s videos to try to get a sense of just how much stars from Carly Rae Jepsen to UGK are raking in … before the labels and other artists that worked on the songs take their cuts.

[Ed. All plays are through Feb. 28, 2013. All estimated royalties are rounded up to the nearest cent.]

Video: “Push Thru”

Artist: Talib Kweli ft. Curren$y and Kendrick Lamar

Plays to date: 209,035

Estimated royalties to date: $464.06 – $522.59

Video: “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You)”

Artist: UGK ft. Outkast

Plays to date: 365,094

Estimated royalties to date: $810.51 – $912.74

Artist: Taylor Swift

Plays to date: 132,117,105

Estimated royalties to date: $293,299.97 – $330,292.76

Video: “Call Me Maybe”

Artist: Carly Rae Jepsen

Plays to date: 415,106,066

Estimated royalties to date: $921,535.47 – $1,037,765.17

Video: “Baby”

Artist: Justin Bieber

Plays to date: 835,174,296

Estimated royalties to date: $1,854,086.94 – $2,087,935.74"

https://www.quora.com/What-do-celebrities-get-from-Vevo-for-their-YouTube-channel#:~:text=VEVO%2C%20which%20is%20owned%20by%20the%20major%20labels%2C%20announced%20at,45%20billion%20views%20a%20year)..)

Does anyone have a guesstimate to which is the most accurate answer? While contracts may vary, it sure looks as though newer recording artists who blew up in the last decade (from late 2000s onward) stand to benefit most from vevo streams.

August 6, 2020

There is also this update from Billboard earlier this year:

"A Nielsen analysis shows that artists who upload a video for a song on YouTube see a 40% boost in audio streams across all platforms. “What we see is that most music fans are using multiple music services, so a Spotify or Apple subscriber is also using YouTube,” says Stephen Bryan, a longtime WMG veteran who is now YouTube’s director of label relations. “I think the industry increasingly understands that YouTube is where, regardless of which subscription service they’re using, they can essentially reach their entire fan base.”

That means YouTube can be an invaluable promotional tool for paid consumption. And labels are becoming increasingly more comfortable with YouTube’s platform and industry outreach, as well as its ability to wring more money from its various tools and programs.

At the simplest level, that stems from the January 2018 consolidation of Vevo and YouTube artist channels into central hubs for individual acts where official videos can coexist with interviews, live performances, tour diaries and live streams, as well as drive merchandise, ticketing and direct-to-consumer outreach all in one place “without concern that they are fragmenting their audience,” as Interscope Geffen A&M chairman/CEO John Janick puts it.

Indeed, there are indications that YouTube’s per-stream rate is increasing, with its blended subscription and ad-supported per-stream rate averaging $0.006 per stream, higher than Spotify’s and lower than Apple’s. (Spotify’s per-stream rate may be lower in part because of its users’ higher average engagement.) Still, as a digital advertising behemoth, Alphabet is still new at convincing users to pay for its products, and it remains to be seen how much YouTube can grow its music subscription business."

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8550838/lyor-cohen-youtube-music-billboard-cover-story-interview-2020