AfterDawn: News

Vevo, an announced music video website to be driven by YouTube's technology and supported by Universal Music Group, is reportedly in talks with broadcasters NBC and CBS. Citing information from sources familiar with the talks, Reuters reports the two sides are negotiating a deal that would see NBC and CBS produce music-related content to be licensed by Vevo and shown on the new site, and possibly also on television.

This would put Vevo into a more competitive position against Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks. Vevo is being described as the music industry's answer to the popular Hulu site, which hosts TV content, backed by NBC Universal, News Corp and Disney. Vevo will offer higher quality music videos than YouTube, and will use advertising to generate revenues.



Since the announcement of Vevo back in April, Vevo has signed a content and equity partnership deal with Sony Music, and similar deals are reported to be lining up with Warner Music Group and the EMI Group. Former Universal Music head of digital Rio Caraeff was appointed as Vevo chief executive earlier this summer.

Founders of the service hope that focusing on music content and providing higher quality videos will result in better advertising rates than YouTube, which offers generally lower quality content (but does have largest collection of music videos in the world) and has a much broader base of content.

Written by: James Delahunty @ 2 Sep 2009 19:00