Last year, Vevo announced that it was phasing out elements of its owned and operated platforms – just months after its two biggest co-owners, Sony Music and Universal Music Group, inked new global deal with YouTube.
At the same time, it was revealed that – seemingly as part of those Sony and UMG deals – YouTube had won the right to sell some advertising direct on Vevo’s videos.
The suggestion was clear: Vevo’s status as a standalone advertising sales ‘rival’ to YouTube was being deliberately reduced.
However, there is still significantly more to Vevo than its YouTube presence, and the latter company continues to prove it – especially on connected or ‘smart’ TVs, amid the growth of so-called ‘cord cutting’ in the US and beyond.
Vevo initially launched its app on Amazon‘s devices in 2014, giving users direct access to hundreds of thousands of premium music videos, in addition to the firm’s original branded content like its up-and-coming artist series Vevo DSCVR.
Now, Vevo tells MBW that its app experienced a 140% increase in US views on Amazon Fire TV Edition Smart TVs in Q1 this year, compared with Q4 last year.
In other words, these views more than doubled quarter-on-quarter.
Meanwhile, Vevo says that its monthly views on all connected TVs have grown globally by 47% since 2018, and that in the last year it has seen over 33 billion views across these properties in the US alone.
Today, says Vevo, an average of 20% of its streams in the US take place on connected televisions.
For a company which boasts 26 billion total views each month worldwide, that’s a significant amount of eyeballs.
“Vevo, holds the largest library of ad-supported music videos and the largest audience in both the U.S. and abroad, and we have begun to re-define the return of music videos to the living room for consumers and advertisers,” said Kevin McGurn, President of Sales and Distribution at Vevo.
“With more than three billion monthly views on TV, we are hyper-focused on our OTT packaging and the growth on Fire TV audience is a key part of this growth. Seeing how many more of Amazon’s customers are enjoying and engaging with music video content is testament to how integral music videos are to consumer demand.”
“With more than three billion monthly views on TV, we are hyper-focused on our OTT packaging and the growth on Fire TV audience is a key part of this growth.”
Kevin McGurn, Vevo
“Fire TV customers have always loved listening to music on their Fire TV, but the growth that Vevo has seen over the last year proves that customers love watching music videos on the biggest screen in the home too,” said Fire TV GM and Head of Engagement Jen Prenner.
“In the last quarter alone we’ve seen Vevo’s engagement increase 140% on our embedded smart TVs, clearly our customers are enjoying more and more of Vevo’s vast catalog.”
Vevo is available on the following devices and services: Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Echo Show, Roku, Apple TV, Virgin Media (UK), Sky Q (UK, Germany, Italy) and Sky’s NowTV (UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain).
Research from eMarketer suggests that over a third of households in the United States owned a smart TV in 2018.Music Business Worldwide
