(1888PressRelease)
January 16, 2009 - The move, thought to be in a row over advertising-generated revenue will see videos from artists such as Madonna and Estelle removed from the site and casts serious doubts over the future of the Google-owned portal. Warner recently announced that it earned just 1% of its annual digital revenue, around £4million from YouTube.
YouTube is seen by many as a long-term replacement for MTV, but so far, despite its huge popularity, the site has struggled to capitalise on opportunities to generate advertising revenue from its content.
Talks between YouTube and the label broke down on the 20th December, with the Web TV platform citing the cost of hosting and streaming video content as the reason it could not afford to offer greater royalties. In a statement issued to Reuters, a spokesperson for Warner commented: "We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide.”
Warner was the first major label to agree to stream their videos on the site and the breakdown of this relationship is bad news for YouTube, amid fears that several other labels could follow them in withdrawing content from the site. James Wilkinson of video streaming and production specialists Streaming Tank, commented on this news by stating:“Despite the fact that YouTube is now one of the most visited websites on the internet, it clearly needs to find more profitable ways of maximising revenue from its content.” Streaming Tank are one of the U.K’s leading media streaming companies having worked with music artists such as Genesis and The Who.
To find out more, visit their website at: http://www.streamingtank.com
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