Vevo To Lauch Subscription Service for Music Videos

Video-hosting juggernaut, Vevo, will be launching a subscription service for music videos later this year.

At Re/code’s Code/Media conference in Dana Point, California, Vevo CEO Erik Huggers said, “Today our business is all about ad-supported. So we think that one of the important things—we hear this throughout the industry—is the move toward subscription. That’s something we’re interested in.”

A premium offering has been something that Huggers has been considering since he took over the top job last April.

There was no extra information provided, as to when it would launch, or how much it would cost a month.

But there will definitely be a free tier. “There will be free Vevo, yes. But we think just having an ad-supported model is not sustainable in the long run.” Vevo needs to come in at a lower price to gain traction. YouTube Red offers all content ad-free, not just music videos.

According to Huggers, 2015 was Vevo’s best year to date. In the past six years, the highly regarded tech veteran has set Vevo on a course of actively working on increasing its video experience for users. It rebuilt its iOS app, introduced new features to Android and launched its first Apple TV app.

Vevo has also been working on its own original music content to draw more users, similar to what Tidal, Spotify and Apple Music have used to build up their customer base. Former BBC Radio 1 controller Andy Parfitt was brought in to oversee content for Vevo.

“We think there is a big opening and a wide space to make something better,” Huggers revealed. “That requires quite a bit of new muscle tissue that the organisation doesn’t have yet.”

"This is about building an independent, long-term business,” he added.

Vevo is co-owned by Universal Music Group, Sony Music, Abu Dhabi Media and Google. It currently has 17 billion video views a month on two dozen platforms.

Hugger is also working on turning Vevo into "a specialty store that only focuses on music, that does justice to music, caters to the audience, offers curation and offers a better experience than what I would call the lowest common denominator of content."

He added: "Is it right that amazing content from our artists sits right next to a cat video?"

After buying curation-based subscription service Showyou last December, there will be more acquisitions, most likely to augment its product and engineering divisions.