YouTube has announced that effective immediately, it will be combining all channels dedicated to a music artist into one comprehensive channel for all content related to that artist.
In the coming weeks, all “songs, music videos, lyric videos, covers, unplugged sets, live performances, backstage footage…and more” will be centralized on these ‘Official Artist Channels,’ verified as official by a music note icon. The subscriber counts for each individual channel will be merged into the OAC’s as well, a move which YouTube hopes will provide “more reach to promote your latest releases.”
Said channels are ostensibly intended to decrease clutter and give fans a single place to find all content for their favourite artists, but some artists are already expressing doubts about the concept.
“I have my live-stream music performance channel separated from my tutorials channel so that tutorial fans would not be barraged by notifications about the daily music shows and music fans would not be barraged by notifications about tutorial shows,” says Terry Leigh Britton, one of the thousands of artists who will be affected by this change. “So, that was a waste of time building a fresh channel for the convenience of my fan base? It seems now music fans will receive notices about my music tech tutorials and other content they may have no interest in whatsoever. I’m not so certain this is an improvement for the fans.”
