Over the course of 2016, the music industry earned more than $1 billion from YouTube advertising, the Google-owned company announced in a release published earlier today. As Robert Kyncl, Chief Business Officer at YouTube revealed, the music industry finally recorded revenue growth in 2016, after over a decade of disappointing financial results. Kyncl believes this growth can mostly be attributed to the rising popularity of music subscription services, possibly suggesting that YouTube RED played an important part in the revival of the music industry. However, YouTube’s executive also pointed out that the advertising sector of the music industry has never been stronger, revealing the $1 billion figure mentioned above.
Not surprisingly, Kyncl interpreted this as a fantastic sign for the YouTube ecosystem, adding that multiple business models existing and succeeding next to each other are a clear sign of great things to come. As YouTube’s Chief Business Officer put it, all of this is just the beginning. The Czech-born businessman expects a lot more advertising resources will move from traditional media such as print, television, and radio to online services like YouTube in the coming years. According to him, the music business has the potential to operate like modern television, i.e. earn an equal amount of money from both subscriptions and advertising, in addition to generating profits from physical and digital sales. Of course, that’s just an ambitious prediction and not a reality, but Kyncl asserted that YouTube is planning to help the music business achieve its potential.
All in all, even after 11 years in the industry, YouTube is still growing and breaking records. This latest revelation will likely just fuel further speculation about Google spinning off its video-sharing service into its own company even though the tech giant never announced such intentions. However, while YouTube is positioning itself to be in the center of the upcoming second golden age of the music industry, not everyone is thrilled with that fact. In fact, major music labels have often criticized the Google-owned company over low royalties it’s paying to artists. Regardless of that, there’s little doubt that YouTube is expected to generate a lot more revenue from the music industry in the coming years, as several analysts are predicting this industry’s value will double by 2026.