Vevo has bought video aggregating service Showyou. The acquisition fills a need or Vevo, which hopes to expand its offerings for its content creators into a potential ad-free, subscription based model for some channels for some premium content.
"With the acquisition of Showyou we take a significant step forward in re-positioning Vevo as a best-in-class product-driven organization," said Erik Huggers, President and CEO, Vevo in a statement. "Showyou allows us to accelerate our pace of innovation with the ability to rapidly add new and differentiated features as we iterate our products in 2016 and beyond."
Since its inception in 2011, Showyou has allowed users to subscribe to feeds from a variety of publishers and discover new videos from across different platforms and sites like Funny or Die or YouTube. It has recently moved into helping its partners monetize what they host.
According to Adage, Vevo acquired Showyou for its technology and its expertise on staff, which at one point included the former interim president of Hulu. This would be the first acquisition by Vevo since it was founded in 2009. Its major backers are Universal Music Group and Sony Music, who looked for a better way to monetize their content.
This move could allow for one of their labels to create premium original content with their artists and content creators that might warrant a pay-wall. Vevo isn't going to start competing with massive video streaming services like Netflix, HBO or Amazon, but this could put them in position to try and take market share from Spotify or YouTube's upcoming subscription service Red, which would distance the two closely related services.
