YouTube’s music head sees ‘great opportunity’ in streaming, touts ‘world’s biggest catalogue’
‘I don’t think it’s a winner-win-all category. YouTube music has the largest consumption of music around the world,’ says Cohen
By Michelle Fox
YouTube’s global head of music, Lyor Cohen, told CNBC Thursday that he isn’t focused on the competition in the music streaming industry but instead sees a “great opportunity” ahead.
YouTube announced this week it will launch on Tuesday a new music streaming service, YouTube Music.
“I don’t think it’s a winner-win-all category. YouTube music has the largest consumption of music around the world,” Cohen said on CNBC’s “ Power Lunch .”
“We have the world’s biggest catalogue,” he added.
YouTube, which is owned by Google , is offering two services . YouTube Music, which has ads, will be available for free. YouTube Music Premium, a paid membership without advertisements, will be available at US$9.99 a month. A third option, YouTube Premium, which is the new name for the YouTube Red subscription service and includes the new YouTube Music service, will be US$11.99 a month.
When asked about the number of paid subscribers it hopes to get, Cohen said the company doesn’t talk about numbers. Meanwhile, Apple Music just announced it has 50 million subscribers. Spotify recently said it has 75 million paid subscribers .
“I’ve never looked at my competition at all. I only focus on my own business and I think that we have just an enormous opportunity,” said Cohen, a former music industry executive.