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YouTube To Increase Ads On Music Videos To Push New Paid Service

YouTube Connects With Wikipedia To Disseminate Fake News Videos Source: YouTube

If you listen to music on YouTube, you might start noticing more ads soon.

YouTube will be increasing the number of ads some viewers see between music videos as part of a strategy to encourage users to pay for a new subscription music service.

“You’re not going to be happy after you are jamming ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and you get an ad right after that,” the company's global head of music, Lyor Cohen said recently in an interview at South by Southwest music festival.

READYouTube Connects With Wikipedia To Combat Fake News Videos

YouTube clarified Lyor Cohen's comments, Bloomberg reports : "Our top priority at YouTube is to deliver a great user experience and that includes ensuring users do not encounter excessive ad loads," the company said in a statement. "We do not seek to specifically increase ad loads across YouTube. For a specific subset of users who use YouTube like a paid music service today—and would benefit most from additional features—we may show more ads or promotional prompts to upsell to our paid service."

YouTube is reportedly building a paid service with reduced ads as well as exclusive playlists, videos, and other content.

This means that for people who treat YouTube like a music streaming service by passively listening for long periods of time, more ads will appear.

READYouTube Will Launch a New Music Subscription Service Next Year

YouTube, the most popular video site and search engine in the world, has been criticized for harming the recording industry by hosting videos that violate copyrights and for not paying artists and record companies enough. The company generated an estimated $10 billion in revenue last year— almost entirely from advertising— and would earn even more if they start selling subscriptions.

"There’s a lot more people in our funnel that we can frustrate and seduce to become subscribers," Cohen said. "Once we do that, trust me, all that noise will be gone and articles people write about that noise will be gone."

Source: Bloomberg