Photograph Credit score: BoliviaInteligente
Legendary music mogul Irving Azoff had some scathing remarks for YouTube, calling the corporate a ‘bully’ that isn’t paying artists their justifiable share.
Artists have lengthy lamented the dearth of royalties paid for the worth of their work throughout the music streaming business. Nevertheless it’s uncommon for such a towering determine as Irving Azoff, Chairman and CEO of The Azoff Firm, to weigh in—and much more so to comment upon a particular firm. Throughout a keynote session on Tuesday at TheWrap’s TheGrill 2025 convention, the business mogul known as YouTube a “bully,” and doubled down on his earlier assertion that they aren’t paying artists “their justifiable share.”
“I’m fiercely protecting of artists, and YouTube is by far the worst offender,” stated Azoff on the DGA Theater in Los Angeles to moderator and TheWrap founder and editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman. “I’m actually not fond when firms benefit from creators. However YouTube has, in my view, invented new phrases for the best way to bully folks.”
Particularly, Azoff accused the corporate of underpaying artists even when in comparison with its closest opponents (particularly Spotify and Apple Music). He additionally remarked on the corporate threatening to take away artist channels when it receives pushback throughout negotiations.
“While you get right down to the tip on a negotiation with them, they name your artists, they name the file firm, they go take your music down,” stated Azoff. “Clearly, their market energy is unchecked at this level.”
Although uncommon, this really isn’t the primary time Azoff has criticized YouTube—and it isn’t even the primary time he’s carried out so at TheWrap’s annual occasion. Virtually a decade in the past, Azoff known as YouTube “evil” whereas on stage, asserting the corporate’s “lack of respect for mental property.”
“Properly, issues by no means modified,” he stated on Tuesday after watching footage of himself talking on the topic beforehand.
Azoff’s newest remarks come at an fascinating time, amid rising scrutiny surrounding YouTube mum or dad Google’s energy. That features the U.S. Justice Division searching for a court docket resolution for the corporate to finish sure exclusivity offers and to share its search information with third events. The Division of Justice had even sought to interrupt up the corporate.
And even Azoff says it isn’t only a music business challenge, pointing to YouTube’s carriage dispute with NBCUniversal as one other instance of the corporate “throwing its weight round.” He additionally pointed to a number of different (unnamed) examples within the tv business, together with late-night hosts, who’re pissed off with YouTube and its contribution to “declining linear TV rankings.”
“It’s unbelievable that YouTube doesn’t pay their justifiable share, so due to this fact the mum or dad firm is dropping cash in your present,” Azoff stated, referencing the economics of late-night tv. “In the event that they paid their justifiable share, the economics on these exhibits would look actually totally different.”
Particularly, Azoff identified the large viewership that late-night exhibits from hosts together with Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert get on YouTube. However the advert income made out of exhibits posting clips and even total episodes on YouTube is chump change in comparison with the promoting {dollars} made out of cable and broadcast.
Due to this fact, even when a collection like “The Tonight Present” has thousands and thousands of YouTube followers and movies with excessive view counts, the sum of money it’s making is considerably decrease than if its complete viewership got here from conventional tv.
In 2024, Azoff stated YouTube alone made $50 billion in income, whereas the estimated income for his or her nearest competitor throughout the identical interval was $10 billion. But on the similar time, Azoff stated the competitor paid its creators 5 occasions what YouTube paid.
Since YouTube mum or dad Alphabet doesn’t sometimes break down its YouTube subscription income in its earnings, it’s seemingly that Azoff is referring to the numbers reported throughout the firm’s third quarter earnings for 2024. Throughout that decision, the corporate reported that YouTube’s complete advert income, together with subscriptions, surpassed $50 billion for the primary time.
One in every of YouTube’s prime rivals, Spotify, reported round $18.4 billion in complete income in 2024. Spotify additionally reported that it paid $10 billion to the music business throughout that point.
Whereas it’s troublesome to substantiate all of the numbers at play, that is largely as a result of an absence of transparency referring to YouTube’s huge content material empire.
“I’m extra hopeful that one thing will get carried out, as a result of it’s not simply the music business that they’re bullying, […] it’s all people,” defined Azoff. “I can’t imagine that everyone versus them isn’t going to make a distinction.”
