Don’t look for Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber videos on MTV.com anytime soon.
Music video network Vevo has pulled its content from the cable channel’s online destination after the two parties failed to reach a new deal.
Eight-month-old Vevo, partly owned by Universal Music Group, whose artists include Gaga and Bieber, supplies licensed music videos from thousands of artists to sites across the Web. In addition to its site, Vevo has a video player that it imbeds on third-party sites.
While viewers watch for free, Vevo, which also counts Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Group among its backers, makes money by selling ads against the videos.
Previously, each music major had separate deals with MTV.com to show videos. As those deals expire, Vevo is supposed to assume them. Vevo is currently in the process of taking over from Universal, but MTV is not amenable to the terms.
Under the old deal, MTV handled ad sales and shared the revenue with Universal. Now, Vevo wants to sell the ads and share the advertising revenue with MTV.
“[MTV] has been unwilling to negotiate a fair syndication deal with Vevo to carry our artists’ videos and consequently our videos will not be shown on their online properties,” a Universal spokesman said.
MTV said it was disappointed by Universal’s move: “During our recent discussions with Vevo we were unable to reach a fair and equitable agreement for rights to stream UMG artists’ music video content. As a result, UMG has elected to pull their music videos from our Web sites.”