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There’s a lot written in the press that tomorrow will be mobile,” he says. “But for VEVO, mobile is today. Over half of VEVO’s U.S. video views and ¼ of our global views are on mobile, tablet and connected TV platforms.”
—--VEVO President/CEO Rio Caraeff

FULL FRONTAL VIEW-DITY

Inside VEVO’s Big Eyeball Collection

If you want to watch music videos just the way the artists intended them, where do you go? Despite its range of offerings (official and otherwise), YouTube censors content, and its Google-tied registration process can be cumbersome. Broadcast networks, of course, must steer clear of content that violates standards and practices.

That leaves VEVO, which airs videos without censorship—including “unrated” versions—via its site, mobile/tablet app and connected-TV versions (i.e. Apple TV, Roku and Xbox).

Now VEVO has released its U.S. Music Video Viewership Report, indicating huge growth in users and views as well as expansion in the mobile sector. Between July 2012 and June 2013, the site boasts 44.4 billion videos viewed worldwide and 10.4 billion in the U.S., with 122 million viewed daily worldwide. They’ve upped monthly unique by 27% and monthly streams by 29%.

What’s more, the VEVO app for mobile phones and tablets has been downloaded more than 28 million times. This has been key, as President/CEO Rio Caraeff is quick to underscore. “There’s a lot written in the press that tomorrow will be mobile,” he says. “But for VEVO, mobile is today. Over half of VEVO’s U.S. video views and ¼ of our global views are on mobile, tablet and connected TV platforms.”

Is a portion of this intense traffic and viewing driven by, say, images of nearly-naked girls twerking, fully naked girls riding on wrecking balls and topless girls cavorting with fully clothed male musicians? Undoubtedly. But, notes SVP Content & Programming Doug McVehil, “Our viewers are also watching a diverse mix of videos. Lil Wayne’s ‘Love Me’ featuring Drake and Future was the most viewed video, with nearly 68 million views, but we also saw rising stars like Ariana Grande draw big audiences. The emerging artists we hand select for our LIFT program are also driving massive views. After launching 2013 with Kacey Musgrave and Krewella, we’ve kicked off the second half of the year with our biggest LIFT campaign yet over 100 million views for Avicii and counting.”

Given its comprehensive menu of compulsively watchable clips, superstar premieres, live concert events and original programming it’s not exactly surprising that the site is racking up a ton of views.

As you probably heard, this week saw the clip for “Wrecking Ball” by RCA’s Miley Cyrus shatter the one-day record with 19.3 million views in 24 hours. Miley took the title she’d originally won (with the beguiling, sexed-up “We Can’t Stop”) from SYCO/Columbia’s One Direction, who’d commanded 12.3m views in one day for “Best Song Ever” (which isn’t too shabby, we should add) a few months earlier.

By the by, “We Can’t Stop” reached the milestone of 100 million certified views faster than any video; want to lay odds that “Wrecking Ball” could set the new record?

“Wrecking Ball” just happened to jet to #1 on iTunes after the video bowed, and the saucy vid for Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” (not to mention the VEVO-only unrated version) played a major role in that song’s massive success.

Not that old-fashioned broadcast TV isn’t part of the equation. VEVO TV launched in North America in March and is now live in all 12 countries where VEVO is available on Apple TV; the report notes the always-on channel was “built by our expert human programmers.” It’s reassuring to know robots can’t do this yet. Look for VEVO TV to expand to cablers in the near-ish future.

Partnerships with more than 900 brands, including giants like American Express, Coke, AT&T, McDonalds, Miller Lite, Toyota and Sony Pictures, meanwhile, generate revenue; short-form ads run before videos begin. Sony Music is one of VEVO’s owners, as is UMG.

You can keep track of VEVO premieres here and VEVOtv spins here.

Awesome, right? Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to watch Iggy Azalea give some dude a lap dance. We’ve only seen that one 73 times.


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