WMG, VEVO IN TALKS

New Vevo CEO Erik Huggers and his Warner Music counterpart Stephen Cooper have been in negotiations about WMG joining the on-demand video channel partially owned by Sony and UMG, with an additional meeting slated for next week, the New York Post’s Claire Atkinson reports.

Sources tell her that Huggers (who replaced original Vevo chief Rio Caraeff) is pitching Cooper on the idea that the music biz is better off uniting when it comes to monetizing premium music videos. Having content from all of the Big Three would obviously bolster the site as a standalone destination. Vevo says it delivers 11 billion streams a month; it reportedly did $350m in revenue last year.

Since its inception in 2009, Vevo has been in the gigantic shadow of YouTube, where WMG videos can be viewed, making it tough for the company to figure out how it would do better being part of the Vevo offering and underwriting the site’s expenses, but sources say Cooper’s listening with an open mind. A Warner deal could help Vevo build a non-YouTube presence and offer paid subscriptions in addition to its ad-supported business.