YouTube/Music

"What's on TV? For Many Americans, It's Now YouTube - People spent nearly 10% of their TV-viewing time watching the service, home to videos by creators like MrBeast"

Free link: https://t.ly/C7uPU

Seems obvious from afar, but the devil is in the details.

Yes, people are all over YouTube on their smartphones, on their tablets and computers. But those uses are not counted in the above statistic:

"YouTube's share of total TV time as measured by Nielsen looks only at the YouTube app on smart TVs, which is free and comes with ads (an ad-free version costs $13.99 a month)."

And if you've cut the cord and are using YouTube TV to watch CBS or ESPN, the channel gets the credit, not the platform.

Boy have we come a long way. Used to be that everybody was tech ignorant. They didn't know how to record on their VCRs, the television was seen as a dumb screen. But today, people are using Roku, et al, as well as the apps built into smart TVs, to watch YouTube.

Think about that. They're carrying YouTube around in their pocket all day, but they still want to sit on the couch and fire up YouTube on the flat screen. And they know how to do it!

Incredible.

Now 10% may seem low, until you realize that only the Disney channels have more.

In other words, the streamers and the traditional cable outlets are the Spotify Top 50, and YouTube is rock...and all the rest of the non-"hit" genres.

People don't want the mainstream stuff. They'd rather even watch amateur stuff than expensive Hollywood programming. We can analyze why, but that's secondary to the fact they do.

And the same thing is happening in music. People don't want the narrow lane stuff, the action is in the rest of the marketplace, stuff that never shows up in a hit playlist.

But you wouldn't know this reading the hype, all about this or that act breaking records.

Let me tell you, as big as the fan base is for K-Pop, those outside of the bubble don't care at all, and have no interest in caring, they're not paying attention.

And this is the case with so many "superstar" acts.

And the lift is much lighter in music, which is not Balkanized, pay your streaming service of choice ten or so dollars a month and you can listen to all the tunes, you get to click what you want, and active users click, passive users listen to playlists.

It's trending more and more in this direction. The share of superstar music listening keeps going down, while the great ignored by media mass keeps growing. But just like you can't make sense of the cornucopia of what's on YouTube, no one can make sense of the rest of the music pie, SO THEY IGNORE IT!

Oh, you'll see a review of this or that obscure act somewhere in the paper, but the truth is most of these other genres don't live on Spotify, but live. Streaming is just the come-on, to go to when you need a jolt, where you might do discovery. But once you're a fan, you go to the gig.

So we have all these acts that can sell tickets but can't have a "hit." Used to be the other way around, you needed a major label deal and a hit in order to be able to tour, now that is not the case.

This is the major labels' worst nightmare. They no longer have a monopoly on distribution, all they've got is their catalogs. Without them, they'd lose their leverage and a lot of their income and have to stop being lazy and compete.

Like in tech, where what you did yesterday does not matter. Everyone looks to the future.

As should musicians. Forget the past, it doesn't apply. If you're complaining that it's not the way it used to be, you're missing the point, and missing your mark. Today is different and it's never going back to what it once was. The public is hungry for all kinds of music, and it's your job to provide it. See the modern era as an opportunity, not as an impediment. Furthermore, for those complaining about low streaming payouts, how much do you think your 10,000 streams are worth? If you were paid $1000, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Just be thankful people can listen to your music essentially for free.

So for all these years we've been hearing about the battle between Netflix and the nascent streaming outlets, everybody's ignored YouTube, which lives on most TVs. Just like the non-"hit" music lives on Spotify, et al.

And YouTube doesn't even pay creators unless they hit a viewer threshold. But then it does, but the only way to make bank is to have a ton of views. What's the difference between this and Spotify? NOTHING!

People were shocked by this "Wall Street Journal" article. Just like they'd be shocked that many have ignored the Drake/Kendrick rap war as well as Taylor Swift. The media doesn't tell us this, but it's true. If you live in a bubble, that's fine, but don't tell us the rest of the world is interested or cares about your bubble.

And what goes viral on YouTube? You can't quantify it. Sure, train-wreck has a certain appeal, but other than that, it's about capturing something unique in a bottle, the zeitgeist. It's all about creativity. If you put out a video like someone else's viral video people laugh at you. No, you've got to go your own way. People are looking for something fresh, that titillates them, that they want to pass on to their friends.

Believe me, that's not a me-too hip-hop track. That's not news.

What is news, which is not covered by the news media, is innovation, bleeding edge stuff that no one sees until it gains mass.

That's how you make truly hit music and have a career.


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