YouTube may be leaving music labels underwhelmed and content overload is to blame

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. As YouTube increasingly pushes long-form, creator-led content and Shorts amid the growing penetration of connected television sets, Indian music labels—long reliant on the platform as a core digital revenue engine—are seeing advertising income come under pressure. YouTube income for labels based on advertising has dropped by 20–30%, particularly when film soundtracks fail to break out or movies do not garner organic traction, industry executives said.

This has been evident in the case of several films recently with the exception of action hit Dhurandhar whose soundtrack found instant draw across platforms. At the same time, short-form content, especially Shorts, has emerged as a key focus as viewing behaviour shifts. “YouTube was built as a platform that is all things for all people, and not simply as a music service.

Although in the last decade and a half, music became an integral and scalable part of the overall consumption on the platform, now other forms of content are making more noise as YouTube replaces traditional TV," said Mandar Thakur, chief executive officer, Times Music. “As a result of that consumption shift, YouTube is also playing catch-up to a newer generation of music fans and there is a significant drop in income for music within that area as advertisers also change their spend habits," he added. Gaurav Dagaonkar, co-founder and CEO at Hoopr, a music licensing platform, said there has not been a deliberate move by YouTube to deprioritize music as a category.