Record Labels Dominate YouTube Views

Written by Ryan Lawler

Thursday, September 17. 2009 at 05:25 PM EDT 3 comments

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Record labels are responsible for nearly two thirds of the most-viewed videos on YouTube Inc. , according to analytics firm TubeMogul Inc.

In a blog post on the company's Website, TubeMogul dived into YouTube's top videos list to examine which individuals or companies were most influential in driving viral video views. By aggregating musician and sub-label video channels on YouTube, TubeMogul found that record labels were overwhelmingly responsible for driving video views on the video site.

Of all the videos viewed on YouTube's top 50, 64.5 percent belonged to one of the top five record labels, TubeMogul reports. Those record labels were also the top five publishers of all time, according to the blog post.

While record labels topped YouTube's most viewed list, some were more successful than others. Universal Music Group and Sony BMG were clear leaders in this regard, ringing up 8.7 billion views and 6.8 billion views, respectively.

It should come as no surprise then that those two companies are spearheading the creation of a new premium site just for music videos. By partnering with YouTube on the creation of Vevo, Universal Music and Sony are hoping to better monetize their music videos outside YouTube's existing online video portal, which consists mostly of user-generated content.