YouTube is implementing a big update to music channels in an effort to consolidate all of an artist's subscribers under one channel, and to provide a single video destination for fans. This update will merge subscribers from other channels like Vevo with their Official Artist Channel, instead of those subscribers being spread out across multiple channels. Continue reading for the full details.
Many musicians have up to 3 channels on YouTube: their main personal channel, a Vevo channel, and a "Topic" channel for Art Track videos that YouTube automatically generates for albums. This new update will merge subscribers from all 3 channels into an artist's personal channel, which will now be called the Official Artist Channel (OAC) for musicians. This update will make it much easier for fans to find Official Artist Channels instead of Vevo channels or Topic channels, since the OAC will be featured most prominently when you search that artist’s name. Official Artist Channels will be indicated by the artist icon, which is a musical note. If a fan is subscribed to an unofficial artist channel, that fan will automatically become subscribed to the Official Artist Channel and the subscription to the unofficial channel will be removed. This will help fans find all of an artist’s YouTube content in one place, and they will be notified anytime the channel publishes a new video or a message is sent from the artist. These changes only apply to musicians for now, and if you are an artist with a Vevo and/or Topic channel this update will most likely apply to you over the next few months.Artists with a related Topic Channel or Vevo channel will benefit by having those subscribers now automatically subscribed to their Official Artist Channel, so it will be easier than ever to reach all of your YouTube fans at once. This will help greatly with promotion, engagement and overall reach when artists release new music and videos on their Official Artist Channel. This update will begin rolling out in the next few weeks, so please reach out to us if you have any questions about this update.
