Vevo's new CEO is the longtime financial chief of the hobbled music streamer
Vevo's not quite dead yet as Alan Price takes the reins.
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Vevo CEO Erik Huggers announced in December that he was leaving the music-video service.
Vevo's long-standing financial chief, Alan Price, was named the new CEO of the slimmed-down music-video streaming service on Wednesday.
Alan Price has been an executive at Vevo since its founding.
Vevo is a popular purveyor of online music videos, but most people know it best as the little watermark in the corner of more than 300,000 official music videos on YouTube. Though Vevo publishes some of the most-viewed videos on the planet, the company itself has struggled for years to carve out a life of its own outside the shadow of YouTube, which is both the source of most of its viewing and a partial owner of the company. (Two of the world's biggest record labels are also part owners.)
Price has been chief financial officer of Vevo for nearly nine years. He's been serving as interim CEO since December, when Vevo's former chief, Erik Huggers, announced his departure. Price was interim CEO of Vevo before. He took the helm for six months in 2014 when founding CEO Rio Caraeff left.
Price agreed to take on the CEO job as Vevo's mission has slimmed down in recent months, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the leadership discussions are private.
A string of bruising developments in the last year has pared down Vevo. Late last year, YouTube negotiated a new advertising deal that essentially eliminated a key way Vevo makes money. Vevo once had first crack at selling ads that run with its music videos. But YouTube secured the rights to start selling those ads itself, giving it more opportunities to directly make money off them. Then in May, Vevo said it was shutting down its mobile apps and consumer streaming website in the coming weeks, making it even more reliant on YouTube for viewing.
Wednesday, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, on behalf of Vevo's owners, called Price "a seasoned music executive and proven leader" who is "the ideal choice to lead the company forward."
"Having worked at Vevo since launch, I feel privileged to lead the entire team as we continue to amplify our unique offerings; allowing artists to creatively tell their stories while growing an advertising-based revenue stream that benefits artists, and our label and brand partners," Price said in a statement.
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