Youtube sees 90% increase in classical listening
NewsStatistics issued this week by the Epidemic Sound website suggest that classical music was streamed 200 millionn times on Youtube in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 90 percent.
Many of these usages may denote a short insert in a movie-length video, but the trend is unignorable.
Onn Epidemic Sound itself, classical usage was up 64%.
Sounds of our times.
We don’t talk enough about the fact that Youtube is a very good thing for classical for discovering artists from today and from the past. And when you like something you can hear that as long as you want and it’s free. This year I have listened the Tubin’s symphonies thanks to that because it was free.
I have listened to many performances/recordings on YouTube, to see if I would like them. And those that I liked, I went out and bought the CD.
I listened to many performances/recordings on YouTube, to see if I would like them. And those that I liked, I went in and…guess what….
I DOWNLOADED THE MUSIC.
YT has and will remain a gold mine to listen,discover music.
The cell phone is the 21st century venue.
Time to raise the ridiculous low royalties on YouTube by at least 90% then!!!
During the pandemic, I discovered the Frankfurt Radio Symphony led by Andres Orozco-Estrada. Over the course of a year, I enjoyed ~ 100 concerts superbly performed and videotaped. Today I routinely search youtube for contemporary as well as vintage performances. Last, countless older recordings are showing up professionally re-mastered.
Mind you, these statistics aren’t of what music was streamed by YouTube viewers.
They’re of what music was licensed by the various creators of YouTube videos for use as background music.
Even so, it’s heartening news.
Youtube is incredible for classical music and it’ll continue to get more popular. I’ve touted this for years. Much of the new commercial recordings are freely available and how would you blame the record companies from getting ad revenues? Smart. And there are historical audio and video recordings that are only available on Youtube.
It is wonderful news. Now: make 5% of them attend a concert now and then.
What this website actually seems to say is that people are choosing classical music more as the soundtracks to their videos – which is a bit different from saying that they’re streaming classical music.
Based on the comments I see posted for some YTs that are classical music or use it, I think it really is so that YT is bringing the music to ears that radio and television and movies and schools no longer can or do. The questions asked and the vocabulary used clearly show this.
I do agree with Anne Midgette. Classical is (or is assumed to be, not always correctly) inherently “public domain” so it can be used without the annoyance of YT taking down your vid because of a copyright complaint, which has repeatedly happened to a friend of mine who posts videos of …. steam locomotives! Of course that puts no money in the performer’s or record company’s pocket as a rule, but it exposes the music.
Another factor is that there are folks out there with enormous collections of recordings or tapes and they want to share (maybe brag and share but still share). The other day by chance I found that someone had posted the RCA Victor recordings that Nathan Milstein recorded with Arthur Fiedler, something I’d been hunting the resale shops for. And that in turn led to a Lalo recording with Milstein and Fiedler leading the NBC Symphony, a V Disc.
This last year I watched the entire International Chopin Competition in hi-def on YouTube, as well as the previous year’s International Chopin Competition on Historic Instruments. I’ve also discovered many promising young harpsichordists and fortepianists who make their videos available on YouTube. It’s one of the best things ever to happen to classical music.
It’s like the Tao. There is a balance in nature. The pendulum is swinging back to artistry.
The You Tube channel “Two Set Violin” with 4 million subscribers has done a lot to promote classical music to young people.