Music video website, founded by Sony and Universal, aims to attract fans who currently watch clips on its YouTube channel
Vevo, the music video website founded by music majors Universal and Sony, is to break into mainland Europe, launching in France, Spain and Italy.
The service, which is also backed by EMI Music, is aiming to attract music fans who currently watch hundreds of millions of videos each month via its channel on YouTube to its own Vevo.com website.
Vevo, which launched in the UK last year, is launching country-specific versions of Vevo.com, as well as free mobile and tablet apps in each territory.
The launch will add about 50,000 music videos from artists in the three countries. Vevo said local users find it hard to locate videos on the more generalised web channel it also operates in a deal with YouTube.
Vevo will use Yahoo to sell ads on its behalf in the European territories.
The service has not yet launched in Germany, despite it being the biggest European market, due to tough music rights laws. The company hopes to do so in the future.
The continental European rollout is a significant step for Vevo, which lacks the backing of just one of the major record companies, Warner Music, which is tied to a rival service run by MTV-owner Viacom.
The Vevo channel on YouTube in France currently notches up about 150m video views each month, Spain 100m and Italy 140m.
Vevo does not reveal what proportion of total video views its own website receives in markets where it also has a YouTube channel.
In October, Vevo UK notched up 214m video views across its own website and the YouTube channel.
Nic Jones, senior vice president of international operations at Vevo, said that the company aims to offer a "total music viewing experience across every connected platform".
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- Vevo
- Digital media
- YouTube
- Music industry
- Internet
- Yahoo
- Europe
- Sony
- EMI
- MTV
- Television industry
- Viacom