Vevo Looks For New Ad Deal With YouTube

Vevo, by far and away the most viewed channel on YouTube, is looking for a bigger share of ad revenue from Google as the music video channel considers going public.  VEVO, which has its own site while its channel is also hosted on YouTube, takes in 65 percent of the ad revenue from the Google-owned property.  Vevo's negotiations with Google take place as its financial backers, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Abu Dhabi Media Company continue to grow.  Google itself is delving into the music business with hopeful iTunes rival Google Music and the signing of the likes of Jay-Z and Madonna to their own YouTube channels.

VEVO Is YouTube's Number One Destination In Total Viewers

VEVO might have a lot of leverage here.  The music video site is the 16th most-visited among all sites online, and it's YouTube's top channel overall, with over 53 billion views.  Much of that is thanks to sub-channels for Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, et al, that themselves have collected over a billion views.

Still, it's a partnership.  VEVO wouldn't be as popular without YouTube.  I'm not certain how comScore measures a partnership like VEVO's with YouTube, but taking a look at the metrics they give for VEVO@YouTube compared to VEVO (overall), it appears as if nearly all of their views come from YouTube and the standalone site gets a very small fraction of that.  No doubt negotiations between the two sides will be along the lines of, "We're the most popular channel on your site!" and "Yeah, but you wouldn't be that popular without us!"  And reams of paper with statistics will fly about the room.

Whatever the case may be, it will be very interesting to see what comes of this.  Will they get more?  I think Vevo is almost like a mouse fighting a gorilla here, but we shall soon see.