This has been said ad nauseum for years and I'm only contributing to the nausea once again but the VMAs have no place in today's society. We are in the age of the Internet and even before people started calling it that, music videos were no longer the prime focus of MTV. It makes no sense to keep an awards show that "honors" the art of the music video when the hosting network rarely if ever airs music videos anymore.

The YTMAs are in their infancy and pretty much should be today what the VMAs were in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. People in 2015 and for the past several years don't tune into MTV to watch videos from their favorite acts, they fire up their computers/ laptops, phones, and tablets to access YouTube to watch almost anything their hearts desire including music videos. Granted, the credentials and judging process is far from accurate as the YTMAs are basically just an online version of the BBMAs and views are not cut and dry at face value like television ratings are (who's to say a single person has only watched a video once?) but the YTMAs fit the present societal mold better than the VMAs do. With this past ceremony receiving allegedly (the operative word here) all-time low viewership, the music industry would be wise to axe the VMAs and shift their focus to further developing the YTMAs.

I'm not saying that this idea will result in music entering another boom period or even that things will get better (at least not immediately), shoot if this route is taken, I don't expect for the YTMAs to be anymore sensationalized and "controversial" than the VMAs were but it's a step in the right direction in the fact that it shows the industry getting with the times. We need less music award shows, not more and the VMAs is the ideal candidate to be put to rest.

[Edited 9/4/15 8:22am]

[Edited 9/4/15 8:22am]

[Edited 9/7/15 7:03am]

please, I'm kind of ignorant when it comes to YouTube

my question is: if an artist gets 800.000.000 million views ( ) does she/he gets big money for it?

I heard somewhere that an artist receives $2 for every 1000 views. If that's true then using your example of an artist receiving 800,000,000 views, they in turn would receive only $1,600,000.

MotownSubdivision said:

I heard somewhere that an artist receives $2 for every 1000 views. If that's true then using your example of an artist receiving 800,000,000 views, they in turn would receive only $1,600,000.

only? wow, that's already a fortune

so are you sayin someone like Taylor Switch gets 1 million bucks (aprox) if she gets like 600.000.000 views (which she does) for every new video she releases?

wow

I have a video on youtube and I checked on it's ad revenue after 12,000 views and it came to one dollar and change. I wasn't the writer so the writer might have received around the same. I was the sole performer though. After that I decided to remove the ad from the vid because it's just not worth the hassle for the viewer IMO. It's not really worth it til you're getting millions of hits.

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As in general society, it's a struggle in music unless you're in that top 1% (or maybe 0.1% for music).

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nd33 said:

MotownSubdivision said:

nd33 said:

I have a video on youtube and I checked on it's ad revenue after 12,000 views and it came to one dollar and change. I wasn't the writer so the writer might have received around the same. I was the sole performer though. After that I decided to remove the ad from the vid because it's just not worth the hassle for the viewer IMO. It's not really worth it til you're getting millions of hits.

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As in general society, it's a struggle in music unless you're in that top 1% (or maybe 0.1% for music).

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That's depressing. With the YTMAs replacing the VMAs and essentially being a modern day version of it, there's the usual coverage/ publicity, possible endorsements, and other perks that accompany the top winners, not just the views. And the views shouldn't be the only determining factor in who wins the Vanguard Award and Video of the Year. Unfortunately, as you stated last, this award will likely circulate among the top minority of acts regardless of whatever crap they slop together for a video (see "Bad Blood" winning this year and "7/11" even receiving a nomination) simply because they're the top acts. That's one of the main issues in the industry today, the wealth isn't shared enough to create new stars and in creating more stars, the acts that are already at the top become even bigger stars. Instead of mountain lions on top of the mountain, we have ants on top of an ant hill because only a handful of ants receive such premier treatment.

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It's annoying when big established artists or tech advocates exclaim that we're in amazing times, because they say an artist now has the power to self distribute and be fully independent. Then when the miniscule royalty rates are pointed out, they say that you could be making money off touring.

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The truth is, the big established artists who have enough fame to become successful independent artists through internet distribution and touring, got that fame from having a major label money machine backing them with advertising at the initial stages of their careers.

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For anyone who's not a superstar, being a recording artist is costing money. Touring costs money.

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The music industry imitates society, the middle class is disappearing and being absorbed into the lower class. The ones making decent or good money are VERY few.

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nd33 said:

MotownSubdivision said:

nd33 said:

.

It's annoying when big established artists or tech advocates exclaim that we're in amazing times, because they say an artist now has the power to self distribute and be fully independent. Then when the miniscule royalty rates are pointed out, they say that you could be making money off touring.

.

The truth is, the big established artists who have enough fame to become successful independent artists through internet distribution and touring, got that fame from having a major label money machine backing them with advertising at the initial stages of their careers.

.

For anyone who's not a superstar, being a recording artist is costing money. Touring costs money.

.

The music industry imitates society, the middle class is disappearing and being absorbed into the lower class. The ones making decent or good money are VERY few.

.

Exactly. The way it's set up is to keep the rich rich if not to make them richer. Major labels aren't the be all end all of having a career in music anymore but they are still an up and coming act's best bet for success even in these alleged "amazing times". Back on topic though, do you think the YTMAs should usurp the VMAs?

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I'll tell you what I do know...MTV is a bunch of shite. I can't remember the last time I flicked past it and it wasn't "Teen Moms", "Jersey Shore" or some other shitty reality show. I don't know what happened, but they deserve no respect from the music industry.

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I have my issues with YouTube and their policies towards artists, but after the tragic mess that is MTV, I guess the YTMA's win by default eh?

Taylor Swift has over a billion views for "Blank Space" and "Shake It Off" and over half a billion for "Bad Blood"!

said:

CynicKill said:

MotownSubdivision said:

CynicKill said:

Taylor Swift has over a billion views for "Blank Space" and "Shake It Off" and over half a billion for "Bad Blood"!

Yuck. That's why views shouldn't be used as the [sole] reason to award an artist otherwise it's basically an online Billboard Music Awards. "Bad Blood" is an awful video but because of the industry's current fetish for Taylor Swift and her popularity, she's a Video of the Year winner. The VMAs have pretty much devolved into another BBMA (then again so have almost all other music award shows). The YTMAs needs to establish a more concrete and legitimate criteria for why videos are to win awards or even be nominated other than they received a high number of views. Unlike when watching a video on TV, nothing is stopping people from watching a video online more than once yet the committee treats views as though each one belongs to a different person.

What do I think about all of this? Grace Jones had a good point about all of this and the current pop stars, but unless some serious and sustained trust-busting is done to the media conglomerates in the USA as well as Canada (in particular the ones that own radio) and this law is repealed in the USA in particular, nothing will change (and no, a revival of this event isn't going to happen either, as radio is more tightly controlled than back in 1978.) I will say that while I don't hate most of them, I don't like them, either (all that I really care for whose like these ladies dissed by Jones is St. Vincent, Janelle Monáe, Duffy, Adele, and Joss Stone.) I wish that the pop explosion would die a bit and let rock (and neo-soul) come back somewhat, but with the racial demographics of music listeners having changed, I doubt that that's possible.

Wintermute1 said:

MotownSubdivision said:

CynicKill said: Yuck. That's why views shouldn't be used as the [sole] reason to award an artist otherwise it's basically an online Billboard Music Awards. "Bad Blood" is an awful video but because of the industry's current fetish for Taylor Swift and her popularity, she's a Video of the Year winner. The VMAs have pretty much devolved into another BBMA (then again so have almost all other music award shows). The YTMAs needs to establish a more concrete and legitimate criteria for why videos are to win awards or even be nominated other than they received a high number of views. Unlike when watching a video on TV, nothing is stopping people from watching a video online more than once yet the committee treats views as though each one belongs to a different person.

What do I think about all of this? Grace Jones had a good point about all of this and the current pop stars, but unless some serious and sustained trust-busting is done to the media conglomerates in the USA as well as Canada (in particular the ones that own radio) and this law is repealed in the USA in particular, nothing will change (and no, a revival of this event isn't going to happen either, as radio is more tightly controlled than back in 1978.) I will say that while I don't hate most of them, I don't like them, either (all that I really care for whose like these ladies dissed by Jones is St. Vincent, Janelle Monáe, Duffy, Adele, and Joss Stone.) I wish that the pop explosion would die a bit and let rock (and neo-soul) come back somewhat, but with the racial demographics of music listeners having changed, I doubt that that's possible.

I can do without neo-soul but bringing that back would help. Bring back rock and funk to the mainstream and once they've injected some life into it once again, let legit R&B shine once more.

Then there's hip hop which has been shafted from the Top 40 it seems yet still is the most recognizable and prevalent genre of music today. Though it doesn't need it, it would be cool to see it return to the Top 40 en masse although I don't want it to happen at the expense of the creative freedom artists of the genre are currently experiencing.

Last year is widely considered to be the worst year for pop music (ironic given that it was 30 years after 1984) and while 2015 has been a better year overall, the reason for that is because of non-pop genres delivering quality releases; meanwhile, Top 40 music has generally remained unchanged in its quality: trash with its only claim to fame being a generic pop album which has taken nearly an entire year to barely sell 6 million copies.

[Edited 9/28/15 5:54am]