{"id":889876,"date":"2026-02-03T03:14:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T09:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/03\/youtubes-the-problem-not-billboard-and-everybody-in-the-music-industry-agrees\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T03:14:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T09:14:49","slug":"youtubes-the-problem-not-billboard-and-everybody-in-the-music-industry-agrees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/03\/youtubes-the-problem-not-billboard-and-everybody-in-the-music-industry-agrees\/","title":{"rendered":"YouTube\u2019s the Problem, Not Billboard \u2014 And Everybody In the Music Industry Agrees"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n

\"YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n

YouTube head of music Lyor Cohen announces a Billboard boycott via YouTube\u2019s Official Blog, December 17th.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For years, YouTube has refused to prioritize paying music subscribers \u2013 while artists and rights owners have decried the platform as exploitative. Should that be rewarded on Billboard\u2019s charts?<\/h2>\n

Should every music stream count the same?<\/p>\n

Perhaps that\u2019s a philosophical question, though Billboard \u2014 and the broader music industry \u2014 decided long ago that all streams aren\u2019t created equal. Accordingly, for years, Billboard has ranked streams from paying subscribers more heavily than free streams on its charts.<\/p>\n

Now, YouTube has decided they have a big problem with that. Despite changes that would actually narrow<\/em> the gap between paid and free weightings, YouTube Global Head of Music Lyor Cohen is suddenly refusing to allow YouTube streams to factor into Billboard\u2019s charts.<\/p>\n

That raises the question: should Billboard simply blow up their existing methodology so YouTube gets their participation trophy?<\/p>\n

Yes, Billboard\u2019s charts are a mess. But there\u2019s a logic in all that messiness.<\/h4>\n

One can be excused for kvetching about Billboard\u2019s hare-brained calculation methodologies. Somehow, a cabal of number-crunchers decided that an \u2018album\u2019 equals 1,000 streams from a paying subscriber, or that a vinyl LP purchase is worth 3,750 (or soon, 2,500) free song streams from that album.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s mishigas. But in fairness, there\u2019s actually some logic at work behind the fog of Billboard\u2019s chart chaos.<\/p>\n

That logic goes something like this: more dedicated, paying fans \u2013 and their purchases \u2013 are far more valuable to the music industry and its artists, songwriters, publishers, and labels than freebie ad-supported ones. And the charts should reflect that.<\/h4>\n

The rest is just making up the numbers to fit. Paid stuff feeds the music industry, and accordingly, it weighs more heavily in the rankings. It\u2019s logical enough.<\/p>\n

Just one problem: in that framework, YouTube will never be a heavy chart influencer compared to other streaming platforms and formats. The harsh reality is that YouTube Music, once a promising paid platform, never materialized as a serious competitor to Apple Music or Spotify \u2013 and with the music subscription market now maturing, it\u2019s unlikely to catch up.<\/p>\n

DMN Pro has been tracking this closely<\/a>, and the race isn\u2019t playing out well for YouTube Music.<\/h4>\n

After a promising start, Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music have leapt ahead with enormous paid subscription leads. In fact, soon-to-be-released Q3 data from DMN Pro will reveal that Apple Music has<\/span> 4 times<\/span><\/em> as many paying subscribers as YouTube Music, with Spotify\u2019s lead even greater.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even Amazon Music, which has struggled against Apple and Spotify, is way ahead of YouTube Music<\/a>. But how did YouTube Music fall so far behind?<\/p>\n

Maybe the answer is that YouTube has never forced music fans to pay, even though prioritizing paid subscriptions could generate a transformative royalty stream for artists, songwriters, and IP owners like labels and publishers. It would also mean that YouTube streams would rank more heavily in Billboard\u2019s charts.<\/h4>\n

That contrasts starkly with Apple Music, which only allows paying subscriptions outside of trials. In fact, the platform was specifically built as premium-only by Jimmy Iovine and others. And despite refusing freebie listeners, Apple Music is currently dwarfing YouTube Music\u2019s paid subscriber count \u2014 and spending big money on Super Bowl sponsorships, holiday live-stream extravaganzas, and more to attract additional paying users.<\/p>\n

YouTube, on the other hand, would never dream of shutting down free access. But that choice has greater ramifications than just chart positioning.<\/h4>\n

As Irving Azoff has repeatedly emphasized, YouTube pays dramatically less than its competitors<\/a>. Crunching the depressing numbers, Azoff has accused YouTube of paying artists just one-fifth<\/em> of what Spotify and Apple Music pay, while being a corporate bully that threatens to remove content when it receives pushback during negotiations.<\/p>\n

Sound familiar?<\/p>\n

\u201cYouTube is by far the worst offender,\u201d Azoff stated at a recent industry conference. Breaking things down further, Azoff pointed out that YouTube generated $60 billion in revenue and paid only $8 billion to rights holders \u2013 about 13% \u2013 while Spotify generated roughly $18 billion in revenue and paid about $12 billion to music rights holders, nearly 67% of its revenue.<\/p>\n

By any measure, Apple Music, Spotify, and others pay substantially better than YouTube. Yet somehow, YouTube argues it should have equal weight in the charts because of its cultural relevance?<\/h4>\n

But this gets even worse. Because platforms like Spotify and Apple Music gained those music subscribers despite the constant drag of YouTube\u2019s free music access. According to industry scuttlebutt, Spotify might even have been willing to seriously limit, or even eliminate, free access if YouTube weren\u2019t such a competitive threat to non-paying listeners.<\/p>\n

The takeaway is clear: YouTube\u2019s massive free tier has consistently undermined the entire subscription ecosystem that compensates artists at much higher rates.<\/p>\n

So should Billboard \u2014 and the music industry \u2014 scrap its entire methodology so that \u2018all streams are created equal,\u2019 while completely disregarding the critical financial impact that paid streams offer artists and rights owners?<\/h4>\n

Perhaps instead of demanding that Billboard change its entire methodology, YouTube should change theirs.<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YouTube head of music Lyor Cohen announces a Billboard boycott via YouTube\u2019s Official Blog, December 17th. For years, YouTube has refused to prioritize paying music subscribers \u2013 while artists and rights owners have decried the platform as exploitative. Should that be rewarded on Billboard\u2019s charts? Should every music stream count the same? Perhaps that\u2019s a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":889877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3015,104640,3016],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-889876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-problem","category-youtube-videos","category-youtubes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}