The data traffic of YouTube for music in question

On the same day that Warner Music Group reported lackluster earnings, the third largest recording company appears to have at least one thing to celebrate: dramatic new interest in its YouTube videos.

Something doesn’t look right with the way YouTube reports traffic to Warner Music’s video clips to ComScore.

(Credit:
Greg Sandoval/CNET )

From December to January, the number of unique visitors to Warner’s YouTube’s clips appears to have more than doubled from 23.3 million to 47.5 million, according to ComScore, making it the No. 1 largest music-video site on the Web. What this means is that in one month the third largest of the four major recording companies has leapfrogged the combined traffic of two larger labels as well as the music units of MySpace and AOL.

The problem with all that is the traffic figures are a little hinky.

According to numerous music insiders, the January data YouTube reported for Warner included visits to user-generated clips. Under YouTube’s licensing agreement with Warner, users of the video-sharing site are allowed to incorporate Warner’s material into homemade videos.

But Vevo’s ComScore figures don’t include visits to user-generated clips. YouTube only reports traffic to that site’s professionally made music videos. Andrew Lipsman, a spokesman for ComScore, said he would have to see more data to determine whether any of ComScore’s rules were broken.

YouTube appeared to confirm that Warner and Vevo are not reporting the same way.

A YouTube spokesman said: “The latest ComScore report reflects a combination of evolving methodologies and different partners having deals around different kinds of content, including user-generated content and publishing.”

A Warner spokeswoman declined to comment.

What’s at stake could be far more valuable than just bragging rights. According to several music industry sources, Warner’s rivals fear that by not comparing apples to apples, Warner may grab an unfair advantage in attracting advertisers, who could be misled into believing that Warner’s traffic is coming from professionally created clips.

Earlier on Tuesday, Warner reported a first-quarter net loss of $17 million, or 11 cents a share, compared with a $23 million profit for the same quarter a year earlier. For the recent quarter, analysts had expected a loss of 15 cents a share.

Vevo’s main backers–Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and EMI Music–have long said they wanted to attract top advertising rates, and to do that they needed to separate professionally made videos from user-generated content.

Many advertisers are supposed to be afraid to put their brands next to wildly unpredictable amateur-made fare.

What is still unclear about the discrepancies in YouTube’s reporting is who or what is responsible.

Nobody seems to know whether it was a software glitch, human error, or whether someone was out to grab an advantage.