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I Want My GTV! Google Set To Offer Universal Music Videos?

According to The Wall Street Journal, Google's YouTube is in discussions with Universal Music to create a new YouTube-based focal point for music videos from Universal's roster of artists. Will teenagers soon be screaming, "I want my GTV!"?

Aside from technology, music is my biggest passion. Growing up, I spent countless hours watching music videos on MTV. Music videos, which pretty much saw their heyday come and go between 1985 and 1995, are still created by today's artists, though they get less air time on MTV, VH1, and their affiliated networks. That's why MTV launched MTVMusic.com, an online repository of thousands of videos. While that's a great place to go watch some music videos, labels think it would be nice to have other legitimate options.

Enter YouTube.

YouTube long has been a popular place to watch music videos, but many of those posted to the video-sharing site aren't being officially provided or licensed by the artists and their labels. Universal and Google are hoping to change that. Sources cited by The Wall Street Journal indicate that the two are deep in talks about a licensing deal.

The portal would be called Vevo, and the goal is to give both YouTube and Universal an opportunity to make more money from videos. The WSJ reports, "Google doesn't disclose YouTube's revenues but has acknowledged it has been harder to make money off the service than it expected. And the record labels -- worried about giving their content away for virtually nothing -- aren't satisfied with their share... The idea is to better showcase the videos on and off the Web site in a way that appeals to advertisers."

The partnership is far from a done-deal, but it sounds as if both parties need something to fall into place in order to boost revenue. No one was able to confirm if Google is in talks with other music labels and neither Google nor Universal offered official comment on the proposed partnership.

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