YouTube Paid Over $8 Billion to Music Business in Recent 12-Month Period: Lyor Cohen

YouTube paid much than $8 cardinal to the euphony concern successful the 12-month play of July 2024 to June 2025, Lyor Cohen, YouTube’s planetary caput of music, said Wednesday (Oct. 22) during a fireside chat with Billboard editor-in-chief Hannah Karp astatine Billboard Latin Music Week.

The magnitude the euphony concern receives from YouTube has doubled successful conscionable implicit 3 years. YouTube paid retired $6 billion to the euphony concern — spanning grounds labels, euphony publishers and show rights organizations — successful the 12-month play ended June 2022. The $6 cardinal payout was a large leap from the $4 billion YouTube paid euphony rights holders implicit a 12-month play conscionable implicit a twelvemonth earlier. 

YouTube doesn’t uncover the fig of standalone YouTube Music subscribers, but the institution announced successful March that it surpassed 125 cardinal planetary subscribers to some YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, an ad-free mentation of the video work that includes entree to YouTube Music. YouTube besides offers a little costly tier, Premium Lite, that provides ad-free viewing for everything but euphony videos connected the YouTube video level but excludes ad-free listening connected YouTube Music. Royalties are besides generated from free, ad-supported euphony video viewers that totaled 2 cardinal each month.

The level has extended its dominance from the smartphone to larger screens. Since February, YouTube has topped Nielsen’s rankings of stock of Americans’ TV viewing. In August, YouTube’s 13.1% stock was followed by Disney astatine 9.7%, Netflix astatine 8.7% and NBCUniversal astatine 7.6%. 

You tin work a afloat recap of Cohen’s Latin Music Week speech here.