YouTube is walking back a statement by Global Head of Music Lyor Cohen to “frustrate and seduce” music fans by increasing the number of ads they’ll encounter while using the platform.
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“You’re not going to be happy after you are jamming ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and you get an ad right after that,” said YouTube Global Head of Music Lyor Cohen during an interview at SXSW. “There’s a lot more people in our funnel that we can frustrate and seduce to become subscribers.”
A spokesperson from YouTube tells Hypebot that Cohen was referring specifically to ads for its yet-unlaunched paid subscription service being targeted to reach only very heavy music users on its ad-supported platform:
“Our top priority at YouTube is to deliver a great user experience and that includes ensuring users do not encounter excessive ad loads. We do not seek to specifically increase ad loads across YouTube.”
“For a specific subset of users who use YouTube like a paid music service today – and would benefit most from additional features – we may show more ads or promotional prompts to upsell to our paid service.”
So, the average YouTube user, even those who regularly use it check out a new band they’ve heard about, should see no difference in the number of ads delivered.