MTV Makes Ad Sales Deal With WMG

MTV Networks has just announced a deal to sell advertising for the Warner Music Group.

 
MTV will sell ads around WMG music videos in the U.S. across MTV Music Group digital properties and mobile services, as well as on WMG artists sites and third-party affiliates. As part of the deal, WMG’s video views will now be counted as part of MTV Music Group’s presumably as part of an effort to raise click-thru numbers.

 The MTV is exactly the kind of partnership that WMG promised when publicly opted out of the VEVO video monetization latform embraced by the other three major label groups. Prior to this agreement most of WMG’s online ad sales functions were handled by Outrigger Media.

Is advertising – even on their own web sites – good for artists? 

WMG's head of recorded music Lyor Cohen thinks so, “At WMG our highest priority is to keep the artists at the center of everything we do, and this alliance enables us to offer our artists the marketing and sales firepower of the world’s most widely-recognized and highly-trafficked music destinations to help them drive revenue from their video content, on the artist’s own site, as well as through the many other places that fans access their music.”  He continues: “MTV Music Group has a history of creating compelling music content on TV, digitally and, most recently, in music games and their ability to leverage all of these platforms offers our artists a broader reach and a more compelling way for us to further connect them with music fans.”