Music Video

I have a little theory that South African Music wil be the single major "left-field" beneficiary of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Remember all those incessant "highlights" clips from the Germany 2006 tournament? They were all edited to music. So now imagine them done to a thumping kwaito beat instead and broadcast round the world to a gazillion homes. And once the music is familiar, audiences are going to search for it on-line and download both the song and the funky video that accompanies it.



To reiterate the sheer opportunity ahead, record label Universal Music Group announced that it too is generating "tens of millions of dollars" from Google's YouTube. Rio Caraeff, executive vice president of the label's eLabs digital division, said:

"YouTube is not like radio, where it's just promotional, it's a revenue stream, a commercial business. It's growing tremendously. It's up almost 80 percent for us year-over-year in the U.S. in terms of our revenue from this category."

While Caraeff gave no specifics on Universal's revenue from YouTube, a source close to the label told News.com that the label will likely book nearly $100 million in revenue from video streaming this year -- which includes placements on other sites like MySpace and MTV.