Image: By Portal Focka – licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.
Recently, Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s massive hit single “See You Again” hit a major milestone on YouTube as it became the 10th member to join the exclusive group of videos that have been watched at least one billion times.
Google announced this news via a post on the Youtube trends blog – stating that the video took 184 days to gain its billion views – coming only second to that of the record-breaking, Gangnam Style. This is a massive achievement in itself, but even more-so as it’s the first Rap song to claim a spot in the exclusive members club. With ‘’See You Again’’ being out less than a year, it may seem surprising that the song has already hit one billion views, but it’s actually following a trend that shows that views on YouTube of hit singles, are on the up.
‘Gangnam Style’ became the first music video to hit one billion views back in 2012, followed by Justin Beiber’s ‘Baby’, and up until Spring 2015, it was just these two players in the club. Youtube’s Kevin Allocca writes,
‘’For ten years, the Billion View Club was one of the most exclusive circles on YouTube, but in 2015, things changed,”
Here, Kevin refers to the fact that since June this year, there have been eight more debuting singles that have joined this elite club.
So, is the billion views club becoming a ‘thing’? With 10 members currently – (featuring the likes of Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Meghan Trainor, Mark Ronson, Psy, Justin Beiber etc), and 5 more waiting to be crowned, this indicates a broader trend. Not only are we watching more music videos than ever, but the rate at which these videos become successful is accelerating.
The graph highlights a common trend that is occurring with the eight new entrants to the club – All videos were uploaded in 2013, and had hit a billion views by June 2015. The average number of days for the top ten to hit a billion views took approximately 484 days, with the three most recent videos to reaching a billion in an average of 241 days. What really stands out from this graph, is the time it’s takes for the videos to reach a billion views, and the fact that this timeframe is becoming progressively shorter.
So, what’s next? Will the goal post for a successful music video be pushed further, with the increasing number of videos hitting that one billion view milestone? Or, will our focus shift to music subscription services like Spotify and Apple Music? Despite the rise of streaming music, current trends are suggesting that Youtube is still a major player in the game – people want to watch music videos – and they want to watch them on Youtube.
The post Wiz Khalifa Joins YouTube’s Exclusive Billion Views Club appeared first on Digital Music News.
Source: Industry News