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Vevo Launching in Six New Countries

Music video distribution service VEVO plans to expand in 2012, according to CEO Rio Caraeff, who’d answered some questions during a small interview with paidContent:

“This year we’re hoping to launch in at least another six countries – Our big priority is to make the service more available,” said Caraeff.

VEVO, a sort of Hulu for music videos, was redesigned last week, and is presently available in the U.S., Canada and the UK – Australia is one of the new markets under consideration.

In January, it was reported that VEVO, which presently licenses videos for YouTube, was planning on moving over to Facebook, which lacks that sort of functionality.

Upon inquiry concerning these talks, Caraeff stated, “we’re in a good position. Content is king. We’re seeing a lot of distribution partners take an interest in that content as a way to differentiate their services. We’ve had a lot of people reach out and say, ‘What more can we do together beyond just having the player on our platform?’ We’re talking with everyone about a more in-depth relationship; we’ve nothing to announce.”

VEVO content presently gets about 3.5 billion views a month, with 30% of those coming from YouTube, and Caraeff points out that “mobile and tablet is the fastest-growing part of our platform – Xbox is exceeding our expectations.” Caraeff added that it’s integral for Vevo to diversify its revenue streams from plainly selling ads posted on music videos. The company took in $150 million in 2011, and likewise paid $100 million in royalties.

Caraeff added that “advertising is a great model when you’re trying to reach billions of people – but it’s not the only model.”