Vevo to shift focus back to selling ads on YouTube
Vevo has announced that it is shutting down its own proprietary apps in order to re-focus on the company's original mission. Which means selling advertising to brands to go alongside videos on the YouTube channels it manages on behalf of artists and labels.

In a statement yesterday, the company said: "At Vevo, our objective is to grow the commercial and promotional value of music videos, fostering deep connections between artists and fans. To be most effective in achieving those goals, we will phase out elements of our owned and operated platforms".=

"Going forward, Vevo will remain focused on engaging the biggest audiences and pursuing growth opportunities", it continued. "Our catalogue of premium music videos and original content will continue to reach a growing audience on YouTube and we are exploring ways to work with additional platforms to further expand access to Vevo's content".

Originally launched in 2009 as a joint venture between Universal Music and Sony Music, Vevo's original aim was to attract higher-paying advertisers to official music content on YouTube, having agreed a deal with Google that would allow it to control advertising on any YouTube channels it managed.

The logic was that by only selling ads to go on official artist or label channels, and therefore being able to guarantee that those ads would always appear alongside official music videos, Vevo should be able to charge a premium, compared to what Google was charging for ads that also appeared alongside user-generated content.

Although initially focused on Universal and Sony output, the Vevo service was rolled out so that other labels and distributers could opt to have Vevo-managed channels on YouTube and, in theory, also benefit from the better advertising rates.

Despite the initial focus on YouTube - and still being best known by consumers as a logo that appears on YouTube channels and videos - over time Vevo worked with other websites, launched its own apps and platforms, and also moved into making original content.

Its new statement continues: "We will continue to be the primary seller of Vevo-specific advertising on all distribution platforms - including the sponsorship of video premieres. Vevo offers unique selling propositions for buyers to purchase national, local and multi-cultural audiences at scale, in brand-safe environments, with guaranteed reach and all of the addressability of IP-delivered inventory".

Despite the closure of its own platforms, it will still continue to develop some original content, it adds, saying: "Vevo will invest in original content including our flagship dscvr and LIFT emerging artist programmes, as well as new formats that we plan to roll out shortly. Vevo's unique programming and cross promotion of content helps artists at every stage of their careers to harness the power of music videos to reach new, global audiences".

"Connecting artists to new audiences, while helping tell their stories, and growing an advertising-based revenue stream that benefits all of our partners, are key considerations that drive how we develop and adapt our business", it concluded, confirming the shift back to its original and core focus. "Belief in the power of the music videos will always remain at Vevo's core".

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Atlantic partners with Big Yellow Dog
Warner's Atlantic Records in the US has announced a new partnership with Big Yellow Dog Music. It will see the Nashville-based independent music publishing company move into actively releasing recordings, starting with a single from singer-songwriter Brynn Elliott.

"I've been friendly with [BYD co-owners] Carla [Wallace] and Kerry [O'Neill] for a while and have always been impressed by their taste, sincerity, and successful early bets on creative talent who have gone on to incredible long-term careers", says Atlantic President of A&R Pete Ganbarg.

"The more we spoke about it, the more it seemed like a no-brainer to partner up", he continues. "And the fact that literally one day after our deal closed, Carla heard Brynn's music for the first time is such incredible synchronicity that we couldn't have made it up if we tried. Brynn is a world-class talent who is just beginning to scratch the surface of what's to come. All of us at Atlantic are THRILLED to be working with both Brynn and Big Yellow Dog".

The there mentioned Wallace adds: "We couldn't be happier to join with such a legendary label, and most importantly, to be able to work with Atlantic's powerful team of highly innovative music lovers. I'm delighted to be collaborating with Pete after all these years of friendship. I couldn't imagine starting this deal any other way than coming out of the gate with such an inspiring artist as Brynn Elliott".

Elliott's new single, 'Time Of Our Lives', is out today, ahead of an EP of the same name later this year.

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Spotify reportedly backtracking on 'hateful conduct' policy
Spotify seems to be back-tracking on its new 'hateful conduct' policy, with Bloomberg reporting that the streaming service plans to restore XXXTentacion's music back to its in-house playlists.

Spotify recently announced its new policy on 'hate content' and 'hateful conduct', of course. The first part is more clear cut, with the streaming service committing to remove tracks that overtly abuse or discriminate against others. The latter part is more difficult to define though, with the company saying that it will stop promoting - and potentially remove entirely - music by artists who have acted inappropriately outside the creation of their music.

The first artists to fall foul of this were R Kelly and XXXTentacion, both of whom were removed from the service's playlists. Kelly, of course, is currently facing a renewed onslaught of sexual abuse allegations, following numerous others made during his career. XXXTentacion meanwhile is awaiting trial for the alleged battery of a pregnant woman.

Neither of the men has any conviction as yet for the crimes they are accused of - and the one time Kelly did go to court in 2008, he was acquitted. Spotify's policy was implemented as the #MuteRKelly campaign, which calls for corporate boycotts of him and his music, gained traction. And many did praise the move by Spotify, although it was also criticised by others. Campaigners have also called for the company to cut out other artists accused - or in some cases convicted - of crimes such as sexual abuse and violence against women.

XXXTentacion himself responded to news he had been dropped from Spotify's playlists with a list of other artists who have faced similar accusations to him.

Now, according to sources who have spoken to Bloomberg, Spotify has said behind the scenes that it will restore XXXTentacion's music to its playlists at some point in the future - although there are apparently no plans to do the same for Kelly. Those sources say that, despite Spotify publicly announcing the policy already, the details are still being hashed out internally and its exact stand on what it deems 'hateful conduct' hasn't yet been entirely firmed up.

It's certainly no secret that there arguments over the policy within Spotify. It had been rumoured that high profile Spotify exec Troy Carter had quit the company in protest. He denied this to the LA Times last week, although admitted that there had been a disagreement over it.

"Spotify is one of those companies where we debate about everything just because it's such a diverse company", he told the newspaper. "Everybody has different point of views. Everybody has different backgrounds. [The policy is] still a work in progress".

The now seemingly wishy-washy implementation of the policy will further antagonise those artists, labels and managers who complained that they were not informed of the move before it was announced earlier this month.

It also highlights the difficulty Spotify faces in policing the lyrics and conduct of the artists whose music is featured on its platform. Many have accused the company of attempting to act as judge and jury on allegations made against artists, and it would appear that it is not entirely comfortable finding itself in that position.

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

The Education Conference: Music Hubs
Over the coming weeks, we will be summarising all the key conversations that occurred during the CMU Insights conferences at The Great Escape this year. We are currently focusing on The Education Conference and today the role of the music hubs.

While the first conversation of The Education Conference looked at music teaching in schools - from primary through secondary, and GCSE and A-Level - music class is, of course, only half the story when it comes to formal music education provision for young people. Many students will also take advantage of instrument lessons through the schools system, lessons which are organised and funded in England through entities known as the music education hubs.

The hubs have been in operation around England since 2012, when they took over responsibility for providing music instrument lessons from the music services departments of local authorities.

Although providing that instrument coaching remains a core activity for the hubs, they actually have a wider remit. So much so that the hubs that are achieving all their goals should also be helping schools meet some of the challenges that were raised in the previous conversation - including the need for specific music teacher training and for more diverse teaching in schools that champions music in all its many forms.

Core funding for the hubs is managed by Arts Council England, whose Director Of Music Education, Hannah Fouracre, kicked off the hubs conversation at The Education Conference. Explaining the origins of the hubs system, she said: "In 2010, Darren Henley - who was then MD for Classic FM - undertook a review of music education in England. He found that there was a lot of excellent practice happening across the country, but that largely provision was very patchy".

"He made a series of recommendations to government", she continued. "That included things like having a national plan for music education, the continuation of central government funding for music education, and the creation of these things called music education hubs. Then, in 2011, the Department For Education and DCMS published a national plan for music education. That's a jointly owned policy that sets out exactly what a child should be able to expect between the ages of five and eighteen for their music education. It also set out a vision for the music education hubs and said that the Arts Council would be the fund holder for them".

The Arts Council then took tenders from organisations around the country who were interested in managing the local music education hub. Many of those who bid were basically the existing music services departments in those areas. The Arts Council then picked who should lead each hub and continues to provide core annual funding.

The key difference between the old and the new model is that the hubs are not a single department in a local council, but are in fact groups of schools and other organisations that come together to offer the best music education opportunities to young people in the local area. The entity that has a direct connection with the Arts Council is simply the lead organisation of the group, which is accountable for its funding and performance.

How the hubs work, who is involved and what services they offer varies greatly around the country. Which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It means the quality of provisions varies from area to area. But it also gives each hub the opportunity to structure itself in a way that meets the needs of the local population.

Peter Chivers runs the music education hub for Brighton. "We have the statutory role of delivering the national plan for music in our area", he told The Education Conference. "But when we launched we knew it was also important to reflect the needs of young people in our city. So we amplified certain areas where we felt there were particular needs, for example supporting children in challenging circumstances, and supporting children with special needs and disabilities. So we had a very clear focus on what we collectively felt needed to happen in Brighton".

James Thomas runs the music education hub in Hackney. He previously worked for the local authority there, which adopted the partnership approach to music education provision even before the hub concept had been adopted nationally. "We had already put together an informal network of organisations in order to provide what we felt needed to be delivered", he explained.

"Part of that was about trying to tackle the disparity we saw between different schools in our area, depending on what expertise and external support any one school was able to rely on", he added. "Basically we wanted to spread the love, and get more schools involved in the programmes that were really working". The shift from being a music services department to being a hub allowed Hackney to formalise that network.

Both Chivers and Thomas definitely see the role of music education hubs going beyond administering music instrument lessons. Being a network that brings together organisations to share knowledge and expertise is a key role.

Hubs can also help meet the needs around training raised by the first panel. "One of the other things we fund is training for teachers", Thomas confirmed. "Training is really important for young people to get what they need. Because, obviously, the people delivering the music teaching need the skills to deliver it effectively".

The music hubs are not without their critics. Some argue that too many hubs have not embraced the potential of the system that was introduced in 2012, either through lack of ambition or lack of funding, or possibly a combination of the two. Even the really good hubs have to find extra monies to realise their more innovative projects.

However, all that said, with a key theme of the wider Education Conference being the need for more collaboration and communication between schools, teachers, educational organisations and the music industry, it seems the hubs definitely have a key role to play in achieving all that.

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

BuzzFeed developing documentary on R Kelly accusations
Buzzfeed is developing a new documentary for US streaming service Hulu on the history of sexual abuse allegations against R Kelly. The film will be based on the reporting on the topic by music journalist Jim DeRogatis.

DeRogatis has reported on accusations against Kelly for many years, originally for the Chicago Sun-Times. He prompted the one criminal case against the singer after he was given a video allegedly featuring Kelly and a fourteen year old girl. He was called as a witness in the 2008 trial, after turning the video over to the police.

Over the last year, the journalist has written a number of articles for BuzzFeed, the first of which brought to light new accusations that Kelly is operating a "sex cult".

The new film project is being directed by Lyric Cabral, best known for her 2015 documentary '(T)error' on FBI counterterrorism operations.

--------------------------------------------------

New Hulu show lets you smoke weed with Snoop Dogg in VR
You may be wondering if virtual reality is really the new frontier in visual media, or just a novelty doomed to fail. Well, wonder no more, because now you can smoke weed with Snoop Dogg in VR. I think that clearly confirms it for you.

The rapper appears in a new choose-your-own-adventure style VR comedy show created by Hulu, 'Door #1'. The show is set at a high school reunion, in which the viewer plays the role of 'Alex'. Joined by a cast including Ravi Patel, Steve Little, Sarah Baker and Missi Pyle, Alex has to make decisions about where the story goes. One of those decisions will lead you to share a joint with Snoop in the toilet.

"Mainly what we were focussed on when we were writing it was thinking about situations in which you'd either be super uncomfortable, or that you've always wanted to exist in", says writer and director Nora Kirkpatrick. "So, you climb the gym rope, you're in the middle of a twerking dance circle, you make out with a hermit, you get high with the janitor, and then go to space".

Hulu VR users can step into all of those situations right now. For everyone else, here's a boring old 2D trailer.

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Diplo & Mark Ronson, A$AP Rocky, Florence & The Machine, more

Other notable announcements and developments today...

• Get a daily news summary, our latest job ads and more via our Messenger bot. Click here to get started.

• Diplo and Mark Ronson have released a new track under the name Silk City. Here's Only Can Get Better', featuring Daniel Merriweather.

• A$AP Rocky has released new album 'Testing', having only confirmed its completion earlier this week. Among a lengthy list of guests, it features Lauryn Hill, Skepta, Frank Ocean, Kid Cudi, Juicy J and more. Here's first single, 'A$AP Forever'.

• James Blake has released new track 'Don't Miss It'.

• Christine And The Queens' new single 'Girlfriend' now has a video.

• Lady Leshurr has released the first single from her upcoming album, 'Unstable'. Here's the video for 'OMW'.

• The Get Up Kids have released new track 'Better This Way', taken from their new EP 'Kicker', which is out on 8 Jun.

• The Devin Townsend Project have released a new live video of the song 'Truth', taken from upcoming live DVD 'Ocean Machine - Live at the Ancient Roman Theatre Plovdiv', which is out on 6 Jul.

• Farao has released new track 'The Ghost Ship' to mark her new deal with US record label Western Vinyl. She's currently working on a new album.

• Frøkedal is back with new single 'Treehouse'. "'Treehouse' was inspired by a six year old kid who tore his older brother's treehouse to pieces without knowing he was being watched", she says.

• Florence And The Machine will head out on a tour of the UK and Ireland in November, including a show at the O2 Arena in London on 21 Nov.

• CAA's Emma Banks is to receive this year's Music Industry Trusts Award. "Emma's innate ability to work with artists, build relationships and of course spot the talent in the first place makes her quite unique", says MITs Award committee chairman David Munns.

• Check out our weekly Spotify playlist of new music featured in the CMU Daily - updated every Friday.

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Beef Of The Week #405: About your privacy
Hey, so I have a great beef for you this week. It's pretty earth-shattering. Honestly, the roof is about to get blown off this thing. And then it's going to turn out that the building on which that roof sat was actually inside another building, and that first roof is going to blow off another even bigger roof and loads of bits of roof are all going to come crashing down on the floor and smash into smaller bits, which will all scatter far and wide into many different facets of whatever this was supposed to be a metaphor for.

But first I need to talk to you about your privacy. As you will no doubt be aware, there's some new EU regulations coming into force today that aim to harmonise data protection rules across Europe. And, in part, to reduce the number of unwanted emails making their way into your inbox. It stands to be the most successful piece of regulation ever implemented by the political institution, in that now people have stopped sending you endless emails informing you that the new rules are coming into force, you will definitely have fewer unwanted emails in your inbox.

Like everyone in the world, I don't really know what these new regulations - aka GDPR - actually mean or what I should do about them. But I've heard something about there being a 20 million euro fine if I don't do something about it right now. So like everyone else, I'm going to hedge my bets and just let you know that GDPR is a thing, and then say some stuff about GDPR, and how I'm complying with GDPR, and then link you off to some more stuff about GDPR, before getting back to what I normally do.

What I normally do - in this capacity - is inform you about the biggest music-based dispute of the week. And it's a big one this week. So big. That roof thing I said about before? Imagine that, but bigger. Though hold all thoughts of big roofs just for know, because - remember - I still need to inform you about what I've done to fully comply with this new GDPR thing.

As a simple weekly article delivered as part of a bigger email bulletin and then posted on a website, the Beef Of The Week column in itself holds no actual data on any of its readers. To be honest, I quite often wonder if anyone actually reads this thing at all. Do email me to let me know if you do, won't you? Though please remember to send me seven emails asking for my consent to do so first.

You know, thinking about it, I reckon roughly 30% of the emails I've received asking for my consent to carry on emailing me now that GDPR is in effect have been from people I've never had any previous contact with whatsoever.

Are people using this as a clever ruse to get me to sign up to their mailing list for the first time? Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe it's the same as all those emails we journalists get from PRs telling us that they are leaving their current agency but have loved working with us all these years, even though that's the first time we've ever even heard of them.

Anyway, if any sneaky people were trying to get me to "re-confirm" my desire to receive emails I wasn't hitherto signed up for, it hasn't worked. I haven't opened any of these emails. In fact, I've been gleefully deleting them as soon as they arrive. I'm looking forward to opening my inbox on Monday morning and having no new emails at all.

That said, a small number of the emails I currently receive are actually useful. I mean, as a journalist it's my job to moan about PRs and press releases, but - you know - sometimes those PRs are sending me useful information that might inform a news story. Maybe even a future beef of the week. Come to think of it, I probably shouldn't have been quite so gleeful in automatically deleting all those GDPR messages in my inbox.

Tell you what, ignore my past email deleting, I hereby consent to continue receiving all unsolicited bulk emails, press releases and corporate messaging. Except all and any press statements relating to 'ethical' streaming services, Maroon 5, or your amazing new start-up that's going to revolutionise music distribution/direct-to-fan relationships/ticketing/playing the flute/farting with the fucking blockchain.

Anyway, this week's beef. I should get onto that. I'm really excited to tell you about it, because it's such a good one. Oh, but hang on, I've given my consent for all you guys to carry on emailing me, but I haven't got your consent to tell you about this week's Beef Of The Week.

You've read this far, I suppose. Could that be implied consent? You opted into the CMU Daily at some point, but did you know that that would mean being on receiving end of a weekly dose of beefing? Does the fact that even now you are still reading this nonsense count as "legitimate interest"? Who knows? Basically no one, right?

I mean, for every email I've ignored asking me to re-confirm my interest in receiving future bumf from PRs, media and other corporate entities, I've had three more telling me everything's going to carry on as normal despite the arrival of GDPR.

It seems like an unintended consequence of this whole thing is that some companies will delete thousands of names off the mailing lists that they rely on. Meanwhile, their competitors - who consulted different lawyers and/or 'what the fuck do I need to know about GDPR' blog posts - have not done likewise.

All in all, you can't help thinking that all the last minute panic about the implications of GDPR may seem like a bit of a joke in future hindsight. It's the Y2K bug for millennials. And a useful reminder for all us British Remoaners that the EU, while brilliant in many ways, can be a right bellend sometimes.

Maybe that's the silver lining here. Post-Brexit we won't have to worry about shit like this any more. Can we get rid of those irritating cookie consent notifications too? Suddenly I'm becoming a champion Be-leaver. And anyway, when the UK economy crashes into the ground once Brexit is complete, privacy will be the last thing we're all worrying about. There won't be much privacy when we're all living on the streets. And no cookies either.

Anyway, I seem to have gone off on quite a big tangent here and now I've run out of time to tell you about this amazing beef I've uncovered. Tell you what, I'll email you next week. Okay?

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN