A recent study showed that 40% of YouTube viewing is music videos, noting:
Out of the millions of videos streamed on YouTube’s site every day, music videos are by far the most popular.
According to ComScore, which will start publishing data on YouTube’s channel partners tomorrow, 40 percent of YouTube’s audience watches music videos, more than any other category. Vevo, a joint venture among Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Abu Dhabi Media, has a channel that accounts for 30 percent of YouTube’s entire monthly viewers and is hands-down the most watched YouTube channel . Warner Music’s channel came in second with 20 percent.
So back in May the site launched YouTube Music featuring the Top 100 songs. The site has also had ‘recommended videos’ for some time based on your viewing history. Now they have updated their music service, saying:
YouTube.com/music is your daily destination for hand-picked playlists, recommendations, local concerts and the YouTube Top 100 chart.
The image above includes some recommendations at the bottom that are specifically related to music I have watched – Miles Davis, Pat Metheny, Keith Jarrett, and so on. When I check out the recommended videos the song choices actually make sense.
You can also check out individual genres, part of which looks like this:
The top of the page has song recommendations, which were pretty much identical to what was on the front page (since much of my listening is limited to jazz). There is also a generic ‘Top 100’ list which is just a pop chart, and you can switch between a few different pop charts. That inclusion – as well as the choices of genres (or which were NOT included) seems to have kicked up some heated vitriol, as the Like/Dislike ratio on the intro page is ~1:5.
Here is the intro video:
What do you think? Do you watch loads of YouTube music videos? Would you use it like a music service to check out new music and artists? And what about the genre selections and ever-present ‘top pop’ lists? Let us know what you think!