Universal launches UMusic Media Network for brands

The new network will offer brands access to UMG’s premium content such as official music videos, songs, lyric videos and behind-the-scenes vlogs, among others, from UMG-owned platforms including Rebel Labs, Mercury Studios and Polygram Entertainment. The network spans across the global ecosystem’s leading social media platforms.

UMG will also offer data and insights as well as branded content and partnership opportunities for the company’s labels and artists. The new service will give users the opportunity to hyper-target audiences through music videos and artist-driven content.

UMG says it has “tens of thousands of hours of video content and more than 4 trillion minutes of cumulative watch time of UMG content on YouTube.”

UMusic Media Network will be helmed by UMGB global head and executive vice-president Richard Yaffa, and UMGB senior vice-president for media and properties Morgan Buksbaum.

“The UMusic Media Network brings together UMG’s unmatched artist roster, marketing capabilities and resources to empower brands and partners directly,” Yaffa said. “Through this cutting-edge new platform, UMG artists can create destination programming exclusively for brands, giving our partners the ability to hyper-target culturally relevant content where they have not been able to do before.”

UMG executive vice-president Michele Anthony said: “The UMusic Media Network combines the unique collective resources that only UMG, as the world’s leading music-based entertainment company can provide to partners, creating an unrivalled service that leverages and delivers the reach, power and influence that great music and artist content can bring, while creating value for our artists, labels and our partners.”

UMusic Media Network follows a new sample service called Usample launched by the Universal Production Music division last week. The service is exclusive to signed artist and offers a catalogue of about 7 000 historic tracks, the company said. Using AI software, the sampling service lets users separate or remove unwanted parts of a song such as vocals or drums.