Vevo CEO Rio Caraeff owes Miley Cyrus.
Thanks in part to her provocative “Wrecking Ball” video, users watched 55 billion music videos worldwide on Vevo last year, up 33 percent from 2012, the company said.
Vevo, which has supplanted MTV as the go-to place for music videos, is looking to leverage its growth to persuade Madison Avenue to swing traditional TV dollars to digital video outlets where sought-after Millennials are hanging out.
Vevo’s chief revenue officer, Jonathan Carson, contends that the broadcast networks are losing big chunks of their young audience in primetime to Vevo and other digital players.
He won’t be the only one to make that pitch as media companies that specialize in online video continue their annual grab for a piece of the $70 billion annual TV ad pie as part the Interactive Ad Bureau’s so-called NewFronts.
But this year Carson said digital video should be on par with traditional television during the spring “upfront” sales season, when network execs pitch media buyers on their new fall shows.
“We feel like the industry has moved past the NewFront concept to one upfront buying season,” Carson told The Post. “It’s one video ecosystem. This is the first year that is crystal clear.”
Nielsen figures show that young people have been falling off the traditional TV rolls. In the final three months of last year, 18- to 24-year-olds watched 22 hours and 27 minutes of TV a week — three hours less than the 25 hours and 34 minutes they watched just two years ago.
Vevo’s videos are streamed through Google’s YouTube, which generates the bulk of its traffic, but it also credits the big jump to more people watching videos via mobile, tablet and connected TV apps.
A recent Millward Brown study showed that for first time, the US population spent more time on smartphones during the day than in front of the tube, or 151 minutes versus 147 minutes.
The TV networks have been stymied in part because Nielsen hasn’t been counting programming views on mobile devices. That will change in September when Nielsen starts to incorporate mobile and tablet viewing into traditional TV ratings.
Vevo is one of the first digital outlets to pitch its programming to advertisers on May 5 during the NewFronts. It will also take its dog-and-pony show to Los Angeles-based ad agencies for the first time.
Vevo is owned by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Google and the Abu Dhabi Media Co.