(11 April 2009 2:15 pm)

MUMBAI: Universal Music Group (UMG) and video social site YouTube have announced that they are working together to launch Vevo.

This will be a music and video entertainment service that will feature UMG's premium video content.

In addition to Vevo, YouTube has renewed and extended its partnership with UMG that allows users to continue creating and watching user-generated videos containing UMG sound recordings and Universal Music Publishing Group's compositions on YouTube through various territories around the world. The two companies will also share advertising revenue on YouTube and Vevo.

Launching later this year, Vevo will be a premium online music video hub built for consumers, advertisers and content owners that will blend UMG's broad catalog of top artists and content with YouTube's video technology and user community. YouTube will provide the technology infrastructure that will power VEVO and host UMG's extensive library of professionally-created music videos on the new site. On YouTube, this content will be exclusively available through Vevo.com and a new Vevo channel through a special Vevo branded embedded player.

UMG chaurman CEO Doug Morris says, "We believe that at launch, VEVO will already have more traffic than any other music video site in the United States and in the world. And this traffic represents the most sought after demographic for advertisers, especially as advertising dollars continue their shift from old media to new."

At launch, people will be able to access UMG's entire catalog of premium music video content, including professionally-created and full-length videos on Vevo, as well as artist-generated and user-generated content hosted on YouTube. Vevo will also serve as a syndication platform, expanding the reach of the VEVO brand.

Presently, UMG's YouTube video channel claims to have more than 3.5 billion views.

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